Have you ever held your own show or sj?

[moneypit1]

Yesterday we held our first clear round and sj (just a fun event and only 2 classes). I now fully realise what work goes into these events. We held a clear round and 2ft 3" and 2ft 6" and it was invitation only as it was a fun event. The rosettes cost £2.00 each and were beautiful 3 teir and had the name of our farm. The jumping classes had a max of 10 entrants and 1st place got £10, second £5. We still made £50 profit and everyone had a fantastic time. It makes me wonder how some unafilliated venues charge £10 a class, with **** rosettes, no prize money and over 40 entrants. Bloody hell, what a profit they are making. Just wondered on your views to all this. Perhaps it would be nice if unafilliated venues offered at least the entry fees back as prize money. They must be raking it in.

 

[ldlp111]

I have often thought this too
Well done on your show sounded great fun

 

[ilovecobs]

My local riding club claimed to have only made a £1 profit from their last showing show (inhand, wh, ridden showing) but on that day my mum helped on the tent and had to keep counting out hundreds and putting them together to send away from the tent as it was too much money to loose.. they made a HUGE amount and i for one was shocked at the statement about only a £1 in the newsletter, if this is true ill gladly eat my riding hat lol! (at this show there is no prise money but the championship rosettes and sashes are very nice)

 

[MissChaos]

I think it varies per venue. The places I know of at least put comp 'profits' back into the overheads, maintenance and development of the venue (not to mention occasional prize money, trophies and decent rosettes) - so I've no problem with it bc as far as I'm concerned, theoretically I could/should benefit from it at some point. Having said that, we stick to local stuff so I don't know when we last paid £10 a class!

And yes, organising anything like that can sometimes be like a second job! Well done; Hope you had the energy to enjoy it and glad it went well.

 

[LeneHorse]

As a fun show with entries by invitation only you probably didn't have to bother about public liability insurance. This can add considerably to the costs for venues who run regular 'open' shows. Did you have a first-aider - this can also add to the costs.
Glad it went well though.

 

[sidesaddlegirl]

I (and another friend) have had our own fun/clear round show twice for people at my friend's yard, my stable and some other people in our area that we know. There was about 20- 30 people at both shows.

It was a blast as we all had a BBQ, everyone contributed £2.00 to enter (this paid for the rosettes) and everyone could choose the height of jumps that they wanted from poles on the ground for us old ladies to high up for the young'uns. Had a gymkhana at the 2nd show too while at the first, we had dog jumping. We even had an audience at the gate from people walking down the lane watching us all compete

 

[showjumpergirl]

It makes me wonder how some unafilliated venues charge £10 a class, with **** rosettes, no prize money and over 40 entrants. Bloody hell, what a profit they are making.

This is partly why so many of my local comps are unaffiliated - they can charge the same entry fee, not give prize money or decent rosettes/cups and have no "overheads"/fees to pay to the association, whether it be BD or BD or whatever.

Anyway, well done for having your own, sounds like you had a lot of fun!
My parents and their friends (my horsey friends' parents) organised us a couple of invitation only shows like yours when we were all about 6, on 11.2s all grass reined up being led over 1'6" cross poles by the overworked dads who'd been drafted in as helpers. This was followed by a BBQ, which was awesome, and all that was paid was each person's share of the rosette money! All great fun of course

 

[Mari]

I've run my own show but we didn't make a profit, just broke even & I couldn't have done it without family & friends helping for free so well done you.

What did you charge to enter? How did you make your money? I was working out costs for one class.
4 rosettes @ £2 each = £ 8
1st prize = £10
2nd prize = £ 5
TOTAL £23
So 10 competitors each class would have had to pay at least £2.30 each.

Don't forget venues are a business. They pay exhorbitant business rates & have to pay staff as well as overheads & high insurance costs. I agree it would be lovely to get some cash back as prize money at these unaffiliated competitions (& one of my local venues does pay prize money - not a lot) but I wouldn't want to be an event organiser at a venue unless all costs were covered - & a bit more besides. They have to cover themselves for the weekends they can't run competitions - E.G. last winter's bad weather!

 

[the watcher]

I have run quite large local shows that encompassed 2 showjumping rings, 2 showing rings and C/R jumping all day.

The costs included insurance, paramedics, toilets, a small fee for the field, rosettes, some trophies and prizes, packed lunches for the helpers and proper lunch for the judges (look after your judges and they will come back year after year), commentary box and timing equipment, contribution to the local scouts/army cadets who did parking and arena parties, plus printing 1000 schedules. Luckily we had our own showjumps or we would have had to pay for those too. We also had a small group of volunteers who helped with circulating schedules, finding judges and stewards, putting up jump courses and dismanteling and running the secretary's tent..however finding volunteers got harder and harder.

It is a massive commitment and financial risk to put on a big show and in no way compares to a little invitation only event - we never failed to raise money but I have to say, given the stresses of it I would almost have preferred to donate £500 from my own account and not bothered with the show

 

[jodie3]

If you are just running a small local show for friends and liveries you probably can make a nice easy profit but for bigger shows it is a lot harder.

As Mari said there will be business rates and insurance to pay. Qualified first aiders are expensive and even if you charge for it per rider you'll be lucky at smaller shows to cover it all. Also cost of jumps and maintenance - even if you only do a WH ring and a clear round ring people expect a decent course with fillers and all must be BS approved to comply with insurance.

Say you've got 5 rings running so thats 5 judges with a steward each, even if they are not paid they will probably need petrol money and feeding during the day and a bottle of wine or choccies as a thank you.

If you are running dressage classes you have to buy the sheets from BD and have a mown arena with white boards - again all costs money!

Cost of rosettes has already been mentioned and again these need to be nice rosettes and lots of specials for the kids rings.

Don't forget to add in the cost of advertising and printing for schedules and postage and endless phone calls to arrange everything.

Also if its a show for friends you know how many are coming but as so few people enter in advance these days you've then got the problem of knowing how many judges/helpers etc as you have no idea how many people you will get on the day.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

My local riding club claimed to have only made a £1 profit from their last showing show (inhand, wh, ridden showing) but on that day my mum helped on the tent and had to keep counting out hundreds and putting them together to send away from the tent as it was too much money to loose.. they made a HUGE amount and i for one was shocked at the statement about only a £1 in the newsletter, if this is true ill gladly eat my riding hat lol! (at this show there is no prise money but the championship rosettes and sashes are very nice)

It does depend on the expenses. There are not only the rosettes to pay for but many other things, depending on where the event is held. Our RC is holding its Annual Show next week (we hope, if it doesn't rain). We have to pay for; toilets, inflatable tent-type thing for entries, schedules, 'thank-you' presents for judges (we don't pay expenses), food and drink for judges and stewards on the day, entry-sheets, late entry sheets, 'thank-you' presents for land-owners, cost of 'man with van' to transport jumps etc fish-and-chip lunch for volunteers who set up on the day before. There are also things like the first-aid kit, accident book, jumps, rope and posts to demarcate the rings, which have to be bought/maintained/renewed.
It also depends on how you do your accounting - if you work out your expenses for each show on a pro-rata basis or if you consider that some expenses have been paid for at the beginning of the season (effectively out of last season's profits.
If you hold a show on your own land presumably you already have facilities like toilets available, so your expenses could be far less than a RC's.

ETA, Oh yes and I forgot insurance, contribution to cadets' funds, postage and trophies

 

[Merlotmonster]

I organise showjumping shows for my local riding club and we rarely make a fortune...sometimes we make a loss and other times we break even. It costs a fortune to have first aid, hire the arena, judges, course builder, insurance etc. Entries are not like they used to be and sometimes I do wonder why I put so much effort in, especially when you have people moaning about paying £10 to enter! They dont realise I give up my free time so they can enjoy themselves, and contrary to popular belief, we dont make a fortune!