UK STALLION EXPO on H&C

[henryhorn]

I smell a multiple username in the air!
Why is it whenever anyone expresses any negativity towards anything you suddenly find "new" posters appearing left right and centre?
I'd have a lot more respect for those who disagree if they stood up under their own usernames...

 

[kerilli]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry but judging from the Stallion's on show that is the case. Viewers want to see the best - that's the idea of promoting British Breeding!!
In A perfect World I am sure that they'd show all the Stallions - but there isn't time to show 48 stallions in one show. Do you ever see the also rans at a jumping event??

[/ QUOTE ]

But this wasn't a competition, it was a showpiece. It wasn't a case of the 'best' stallions, or the 'also rans' - what might suit 1 mare ideally might be an appalling choice for another, surely? It is up to the individual mare owners to decide which ones they thought were the 'best' for their particular mare, not up to the organiser (or H&C, or whoever) to decide which ones deserved more promotion.

 

[levantosh]

What I would like to know is where is the organiser, who posted about the expo and their nominated charity (martine I think) or H+C TV I think they should at least make an appearance on this thread to justify a few things.
Also someone said 'they did well with the stallions they had' b*****ks did they. 2 days of the expo and they managed one hour of hand picked stallions to show on TV, rubbish, one of the best up-and-coming stallions wasn't even shown, come on! There were plenty of talented stallions that weren't shown.
If anything (with the coloured horse at the beginning) made him look like a piece of s**t by not even putting a correct striding double, it took for someone elses groom to do it!!!

 

[cruiseline]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry but judging from the Stallion's on show that is the case. Viewers want to see the best - that's the idea of promoting British Breeding!!
In A perfect World I am sure that they'd show all the Stallions - but there isn't time to show 48 stallions in one show. Do you ever see the also rans at a jumping event??

[/ QUOTE ]

As you have posted in reply to me, I feel I need to reply back. You are obviously not a knowledgable breeder, or you wouldn't have made such a stupid comment, which I find quite offensive and I didn't even have a stallion at the event.

You say 'the best' but who's opionion is that statement based on? If you were a breeder with an ounce of experience you would know that not every stallion will suit every mare. If you think otherwise I am afraid you are delusional.

If your opinion has been formed because you were 'part' of the organisation of the event, I am afraid any creditability you might have thought you had, has gone out the window, along with your reputation.

Your comments are formed on your opinion, which I feel should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

 

[Eothain]

Also rans at a jumping event? Yeah sure. Watch Spruce Meadows on Sky Sports. Good rounds, bad rounds and indifferent rounds. They show everything

 

[Smee]

When I enquired about the "Episode One" title for the Expo (in the vain hope that this may mean an 'Episode 2' with the other stalllions on) this was the response from H&C TV:

"I'm afraid the expo programme is the only one of its kind. It says Episode 1 as this is how the system organises the programmes to show online.

All stallions will be available to view online with their own videos (available for syndication) - this will be today or tomorrow. The TV programme was just a highlights programme, but will also be available to view online at some point this week. "

Just thought I'd share...

 

[toffeesmarty]

[ QUOTE ]


It was really nice to see JW back on horsebacks again as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the purpose of the programme has been lost on you Gatita. The clue is in the title - UK Stallion Expo 2010.

As much as I admire JW I expected to see stallions.....instead, we have to watch too much talking and too few stallions.

You say that the producers had 'to do the best job with the stallions available'. Give me strength!

How would you feel if you were a stallion owner who had paid out several £100s to attend and exhibit at the Expo to read two weeks later that their stallion wasn't included because it wasnt good enough. Don't be ridiculous!

H&C were paid to film the programme by the Expo organiser who lives in France, owns a company with French Stallions in the title and who didn't think the Expo a big enough showcase to bring one of his own stallions along to.

Any which way you look at this, the Expo was a lost opportunity for many but a geat way to earn some £££s for one.

 

[magic104]

"Any which way you look at this, the Expo was a lost opportunity for many but a geat way to earn some £££s for one". - Well I doubt that will happen again, so I hope he makes the most of it. Afterall this I would never use one of his stallions, even if he had one I liked & suited. There are enough good stallions out there not to have to use any of his. I for one will never give the guy the benifit of the doubt again

 

[madeleinewachman]

I haven't read all the responses..... too many!

But I am surprised that so many people expected to see all the stallions on a one hour program....
H&C were never going to be able to show all the stallions and the sponsors in a 1 hour program, when it took all day to show all the stallions on offer....... It seems ridiculous to me to even imagine that this might have been the case!

I would also have thought that H&C are also interested in getting the general public watching, but also to keep them watching. If they had put on a really long show to keep everyone happy, the stallion owners might have watched, but the rest of the general public might have switched off the telly before half time!

With all these things, the future and how the format will run next year from H&C's perspective, must be determined by the ratings they recieve for the show and any future airings they might do.... and theirfore the revenue they recieve verse's cost. If they get enough interest, perhaps they will do a Stallion series or similar.

As for value for money and only the organiser making money.... at a charge of £225 for the stallion owners.... even with entry fee's and sponsorship. Once H&C are paid, officials are paid, venue paid, sales and marketing etc paid for..... I would have thought that the organiser would have only broke even at best!
I might be wrong.... but I certainly think there are easier ways to make money, if that was all he was after this year.

Don't get me wrong, I am sure the long term aim is to do an event like this that is commercially viable, does make money and raises the profile of British breeding and UK stallions as well as his own, otherwise why would you do it. I am sure a huge amount of hard work went into it. However in reality a venture like this is always going to take a few years to really get off the ground and be economically viable.

I thought it was a good first start, room for improvement yes, but again as the first of it's kind this really was to be expected too.

I think constructive critisicm instead of slating would hopefully benefit everyone all round!

 

[Diggory]

[Madsmw, if you can't be bothered to read everyone's comments, then you are hardly in a position to say if any or all of the expectations expressed were 'ridiculous' or not. I don't believe it was stated anywhere how long the programme was going to be, so it was not 'ridiculous' to suppose all the stallions would be included, and I can't think why so many stallion owners would be expecting to be included in a programme if they had not been led to believe they would be.

And how small-minded to imagine that, apart from stallion owners vainly gazing at their pride and joy, the only other viewers would be the 'general public'. The main audience for this programme is likely to be mare owners, most of whom would (probably) happily sit through an hour-long programme if they were expecting to contain a fair balance of stallions, regardless of their own personal preference for discipline, if any. Some of us do actually breed for more than one discipline, and do think outside of the box and consider stallions from one discipline to improve another and so on. And, surprise, surprise, some of us are sufficiently fascinated by breeding as a whole as to be interested in seeing everything on offer, not just the ill-chosen few offered in H&C’s programme.

I note that no-one has yet said who chose the few that were in the programme – which probably means the adage “He who pays the piper calls the tune” applies.

 

[eventrider23]

Madsmw I just want to ask what 'marketing' you think any money was spent on? The only advertising that was done for the event was on here (free), a facebook page (free) and using a website that had already been bought for another purpose (the name of original site was not even changed! So where was all this marketing money spent other than I imagine on the catalogues, which I have heard are excellent btw?

 

[madeleinewachman]

Diggory I did read the first two pages but it was taking too long to read them all unfortunately. I wanted to give my opinion, but also felt it wasn't fair to give it without making it clear that I hadn't read all the comments given.

I think you are right that it wasn't stated anywhere what length the programme was going to be, but I would have assumed that it would have been about an hour as most TV programs generally are between 30 mins and an hour unless they are a feature film. Not being a TV expert I would assume this is due to optimum audience viewing times etc.
This would lead me to believe that as we were never told H&C were doing a series at best it would be about an hour..... Common sense would then make me question how all the stallions are possibly going to be shown!

I don't know if the organiser claimed all the stallions where to be shown on h&c and I totally agree, if this was the case, this was misleading.
But at the same time I just wanted to make the point If I had been a stallion owner and had had been given the impression all stallions would be shown, I would have questioned how a day’s worth of stallions was going to be compressed into a TV show which would logically be about an hour long.....

'And how small-minded to imagine that, apart from stallion owners vainly gazing at their pride and joy, the only other viewers would be the 'general public'. The main audience for this programme is likely to be mare owners'

'vainly gazing at their pride and joy' - your expression not mine. Having seen many of the beautiful stallions at the expo they would have every ride to gaze at thei pride and joys along with the rest of us!

I was referring to mare owners as being part of the general public..... But was tying not to be small minded by assuming that this would be the only audience the h&c program might attract.
I also agree that mare owners would probably if not definitely happily sit through an hour long programme of stallions as I and many others did. I was trying to make the point would they sit through 3-6hours... ? Which was what was probably needed to get all the stallions shown.
If we assume the mare owners might ( it certainly saves driving up and down the lentgh of the country to see them in person), would the rest of the viewing general public.....?
If not, then it wouldn't make sense for h&c to do anything longer than an hour?

The ones that were shown as commented before did seem to be the high profile named horses that might be recognized by a wider audience. I agree that it is sad that more horses couldn't be shown as getting some of the less well known stallions out into a wider public audience would be great. However I also understand that what might be idealistic might not make commercial business sense from h&c's point of view.

 

[madeleinewachman]

I agree eventrider that it is a pity there was not more marketing done for the expo and as a result that there was not a bigger turn out.
At the same time there is obviously a cost involved contacting stallion owners, finding sponsorship, designing and hosting a website, employing staff etc....

Also viral marketing tends also to be more effective than traditional paper adverts... bigger audience and less cost!
I think it is a pity that h&c didn't advertise the event ( correct me if they did) but I can only imagine that this type of advertising is prohibitivly expensive....

Of course in an ideal world it would have been wonderful for us, if the organisers had a bottomless pit of money to have thrown at the event... if they didn't have to worry about the bottom line, but the reality is for most we don't live in a world where we can risk the sums of cash needed to do all the sales and marketing that we would like, or to provide the most wonderful 'cold free' venue.

My hope was that with support...... this expo might have grown into something that we would all be proud and happy with. An event that could justify a huge sales and marketing spend, that would warrant a prestige venue, with great facilities and yes heating!!! ( I agree it was very cold!). That it would have the audience that it deserves and that h&c would perhaps run a series on it showing all the stallions.
This was never going to happen in year one and will/would have only happened if people could have worked with it, help advise ( not critisise) the organisers on how to improve it and generally supported it.

 

[levantosh]

Madsmw, I have to agree with diggory you should not comment without reading the whole thread (the rest of us have) and we have based our opinions on what has been said. We have made points regarding the improvement of the expo and the tv slot.
As to your point that no-one will sit through hours of stallion footage, this is just ridiculous, as a mare owner (and I'm sure as many on here have done) I have looked through hours of dvd footage (not once but many times) and then tried to see a horse in the flesh to make sure the stallion suits my mare. What seems to be the general consensus is H+C TV should have had maybe one hour of footage everyday until all stallions were shown, maybe a 5 part series running from the Monday to the Friday.
And, I think every stallion owner that took their stallion have every right to 'vainly gaze' these stallions cost a lot of money....

 

[eventrider23]

Madsmw - H&C THEMSELVES stated that all the stallions would be shown. If you watch their ad for the programme seen here: http://www.horseandcountry.tv/episode/uk-stallion-expo-2010-promo In this promo the presenter himself says something along the lines of 'this is Romarnic Ranger - tune in to see him and ALL his friends at 9pm on Sat' Well.....sadly Romarnic Ranger himself was not shown and all of his 'friends' certainly weren't.

Regarding advertising spend...yes I imagine phoning all the owners was expensive...especially when you count in the very many who did not attend....however other than that I cannot see where all the money that has been earnt could have been spent...yes venue hire is not cheap and there is production of catalogues, etc HOWEVER the amount paid out by the owners and exhibitors for what was PROMISED and never given far outweighs the costs. There is a post further up whereby someone has kindly tallied up some of the costs.....an enilightening post especially when you consider that not all of the revenue was tallied up there.

You say that it was a good 'first attempt'...I am sorry but that is not good enough. Far too often over here we accept that because our breeding is 'second rate' that having a shoddy exhibition is ok. NO. If someone promises something that is done properly then we should expect something to be done properly. NOT second rate just because it is the first year. We were promised a European standard show and that is not what was given. Full stop. You just have to read the expo's website to see all that was promised including the over 100 stallions that were supposed to be present as well as the thousands of spectators that were supposed to be there.

To the outsider viewing the website it looks indeed to have been a glamourous show as all the photos on the website have been taken from other stallion shows and so to someone viewing it for the first time it does indeed look like the audience is packed and that the stallions are loose jumped, etc.

Sadly this is not the case and I do actually wonder from a referencing POV how the website itself stands from a plagiarism perspective seeing as none of the photos used on the site have been referenced as to where they have been taken from as alas they are not taken at the expo nor in the case of photos of stallions, they are not stallions exhibiting at the event.

Personally I am sad this show has come off so poorly. It would have been a great thing indeed if it had been all that was promised as whilst you can say it is a good first attempt...a first attempt is not what was promised....we were promised 'the most important event in British breeding' (quote taken from expo website). This certainly was not the case and viewing their facebook page, one disgruntled spectator actually redubbed the slogan as 'an embarrassment to British breeding'.

 

[magic104]

What I suggest you do is watch all the clips that are available on another thread after this one & then tell us that not all the stallions could not have been shown! After editing it would have been possible, just because it ran all day does not mean it could not be condensed into an hour. It is good that there are still other people willing to put another perspective on things, I for one though am past thinking this was for "UK breeding". Hopefully though something good will come out of it & other people can take up the challenge. To think I nearly persuaded a friend to take a stand there!!

 

[Alec Swan]

Madsmw,

[ QUOTE ]
I haven't read all the responses..... too many!

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps if you had, actually taken the trouble to read the previous posts, then you may well have a different view point.

Consider these facts;

A/ Baileys, the highly reputed, and equally highly regarded feed company "Sponsored" this event. I do just wonder how they are feeling now. That this Expo has done nothing to promote their business cannot be in question, and further, at no point have I seen, or heard them receive any form of recognition. I would be interested to hear how much they paid.

B/ There were some 50 or so stallion owners who were charged in excess of £200 each. That's well in excess of £10k

C/ The stall holders? Perhaps 15 at £350 each?, then that's £5.25k

D/ There were 30 pages of private advertisements, within the programme, which at £300 per page totalled up, would come to £9k.

I may well have my figures wrong, but I suspect that, if we include Baileys in this, then we will be looking at well in excess of £25k.

So now let us look at the costs.

Advertising, NIL. It could have been advertised with the H&H, most certainly the leading journal, but sadly that option probably wasn't available.

The venue? God knows, but if it were more than £3k, then I would be surprised, and if the promoter paid more than that, then he only has himself to blame.

Staff and help on the day? I would hope that they were volunteers, because the "assistance" was, at best, inept.

Printing? I can't speak with any experience on this point, but assuming that the promoter knew very well that probably less than 500 people would turn up and actually want programmes, then lets say that aspect cost £2k?, and that's being generous.

H&C, for what it was worth? I really don't know the answer to this one. Television space, or so it seems to me is paid for by either the promoter, or the company who own the broadcasting rights, and that would depend upon the considered value, of the event. As very little seems to have been spent on promoting the Expo itself, I would imagine than an equally miserly amount was spent on H&C.

That a stallion, purportedly the property of the promoter, received preferential promotion over those who'd actually paid to take part in this, can only be described as a disgrace.

In the defence of the promoter, I will say this;

The bitter weather tended to put a dampener on the day. Perhaps it was the wrong time of year.

That some of the stallion owners allowed their charges to be trotted up, whilst in the charge of those who seemed to me to be, at best, out of their depth, must be obvious. I witnessed one horse brought in who had not one, but two girl handlers, and one of those, with a whip with a plastic bag attached to the end of it! Was I impressed? What do you think?

That the commentator/promoter struggled with his notes must have been obvious. It could hardly be considered to be a redemption, but if the owners didn't make the commentator aware of the selling points, or the extended pedigree, or the results of their own horse, and I suspect that many didn't, then that I would suggest, didn't help.

For myself I have to admit to a certain degree of ambivalence. I did my level best to support, and where I could, lend support to a wonderful idea, to the irritation of some.

To suggest that the promoter is an idiot, would be entirely wrong. I have serious difficulties supporting someone who assures us that there will be 100 stallions taking part, when there are probably less than 50 stables at Keysoe, when we are also assured that there will be 2000 mare owners present, and the bulk of the parking is taken up by the 50 or so horse boxes, and incidentally, perhaps 20 cars on the Sunday, then that, quite simply, defies belief.

Madsmw, go back and read the previous postings, many from those who offered moral support, and then come back and tell me just how much of a success the Expo was. Support your argument with fact, and I will listen to your words.

Next year? there will need to be some major improvements, in my view.

Alec.

 

[toffeesmarty]

[ QUOTE ]


Also viral marketing tends also to be more effective than traditional paper adverts... bigger audience and less cost!


[/ QUOTE ]

Well that plan backfired didn't it? What were the overall weekend ticket sales?

I know many people who because of the weather, journey time and even the fact that it was Valentines weekend decided to stayed at home with the promise of being to watch it on H&C instead. If advertising in H&H was beyond the organiser what about other equestrian magazines - or would that have cut into the profit margin too much?

 

[magic104]

My god Alec never thought I would say this, but fully support this post & in full agreement.

 

[nomis]

^^^^ Ditto what magic104 says!

 

[magic104]

Below taken from Keysoe website
Cost of Facilities
Accurate quotation will be subject to a detailed list of what facilities are required.

As a guide:-

Indoor and outdoor all weather arenas plus hard standing parking would be £1000 per weekend day or £800 midweek.

As above plus overflow parking and main grass arenas would be £1250 per day.

This price includes use of our PA equipment required, plus normal requirements for show office / toilets / catering availability etc.

Just to give an idea of costs for the venue

 

[cruiseline]

Ditto Magic, too