I have only done Crufts and one open show this year, ive been too busy with canix and agility, and to be honest can find breed showing a bit demoralising.  I thought I might enter Richmond as I have a free day and its quite local, so went online to enter and OMG £27 thats not including the admin fee ..... When did the price of champ shows shoot up ? and the price of camping too - £50   I can do a weekend agility show, with 3 classes per day and camping for under £50.

Just to add........ I didnt enter, think we are going to take the boys for a nice walk and spend the £27 on Sunday lunch !!

Claire :)

I know!!!! Richmond is the most expensive and I didn't notice the price until after I entered I got the email confirmation through - OMG I nearly fell of my chair!!! I think some other shows are £24 per dog but I really could not afford to show more than two dogs. I am a bit broke :(. Next year I might have to cut back a bit.

That's nothing compared to the £39 it's going to cost to enter the Supreme Cat Show this year.........! But yes, I'm giving Richmond a miss too this year. For the Richmond fee you can enter about 8 dogs to open shows!

We've only got one CC on offer at Richmond but it still costs the same to enter!

I was stewarding at the weekend at an Open show and the judge was saying he's going to have to cut down on his appointments and showing next year due to cost. He also thinks Champ show entries will rise to nearer £30.

It's starting to look like people are only going to offer their services in their local area. A shame as I'm sure some societies may struggle to continue.

Totally agree Richmond is very expensive.  I have only done one other champ show (aside from breed) due to cost of entries and travel!

With the JHA semis I really can't not enter - although I currently have only entered Connor (Emily has a dog to borrow!) - but seeing as the entries are extended I might enter Max just in case!  but for two dogs thats £55!!! 

Why at Richmond they don't have a reduced entry for the handlers where you don't want to put them in the breed!

Luckily its our most local show so the fuel costs won't be too bad.

£27 a dog    Online entries have extended again for this show, I know it's really close for me but still it's very expensive.. Will have to relook at our judge to see if I really want to enter or save pennies .

When is it extened too?

Extended to 4th august noon

Also NFC free at agility £14 at Richmond will be using unentered dogs tent I think !

>Extended to 4th august noon

wish you hadnt told me that, will give me more time to mull it over and end up changing my mind. 

Its right about un-entered dogs though, at least at agility shows they are free.  Although Fagan is happy in the unentered dogs tent I dont think my Jack my kelpie would like it ... in fact I think he would scream the place down !!!

I know I only entered Connor but no doubt will end up entering Max now - Charlie will be fine he was ok last year :). Bless Jack !

The cost of UK shows is appalling.  And just where does the money they have from us for entry, and the trade stand fees go to? It certainly does not go back into the show to benefit the exhibitor!  The overnight parking charges are a disgrace.  £50 take it or leave it attitude.  Why not have a pay per night option for those of us who only want one night?  I paid 28 Euro only for the whole of the World Show.  I choose now to show more on the continent, at least you have a staggered entry fee for 1st dog, then less for 2nd and 3rd and so on, cheap overnight (or even free) parking, and decent rosettes and often even a nice trophy or prize in kind to keep!  Not these cheap, scruffy placecards that we see people shoving in their pockets as they leave the ring, or just dumping them in the bin on the way out, and that includes RCC's I see many doing the same with!

harkback -but instead you pay 70 euros or more to enter one dog to a world show, don't you..... 90 euros if leaving it late!

When I add up the far away shows and the nearer ones , It costs me on average £200 per show.  That demoralises me :-D  Apart from 2 or 3 shows I need a hotel for every show and between £60-£100 in fuel and that is a car doing 50MPG :-(

You'll have to send a good 'un down to me hen.

Plus pages and pages of advice on coat preparation ;-)

xx

What I would do for a good handler that I could hand dogs too :-D   It isn't the money really , I always havea  sore bum for days sitting in a car for between 10 and 18 hours in 24-36 hours :-)   It aches for days LOL.  You think the padding would protect it but I must have a flat bum :-D

I have cut back this year. 

Didn't do Birmingham national.

Haven't done any Open shows, not entered WKC, and won't enter SWKA (mainly because it is at Builth and not over the Bridger any more).

So that is 3 of my usual champ shows binned, all bar two Open shows, and I won't do any extra shows like I did last year like East Of England, City of Birmingham, Driffield, Leeds, because I had a new Pup to show.

I think by the end of the year I will only have only done two open shows (club show and the Nordic), one champ show without CC's (Southern Counties) and 9 champ shows with CC's (including Breed club show and Crufts).  12 shows all told.  I used to do on average 20 - 25 shows a year.

Why have I cut out the Open shows, lack of meaningful competition lack of judges that will know the breed, and the cost of getting to them is same as for champ shows, no such thing as a local champ show, except for Weston Super Mare or one or two others with horrible cramped slippy sports halls..

Richmond is my local general champ show  (southern counties don't have Cc's) was gobsmaked when i'd registered online and seen the cost.Think there'll be lots of people cutting down on Champ Shows next year , if they haven't done so already! The only open shows i do are club shows now.

Richmond is my local general champ show   You lucky thing.. I am over 500 miles away , still deciding whether to enter or not has all my show are miles away this year. 

WKC, and won't enter SWKA I am doing both these this year AND I Hate the journey with a massive passion. It is just bonkers the location :-)  BUT the judges are Ok for me.

My local champ show too... do love the venue too!  Although the year of the rain.... parking was a nightmare!!!

I am very very lucky in that Ardingly Showground is practically on my doorstep so Open shows are plentiful and only 15 minutes away.

I do miss the champ shows but just can't justify the cost of them! regardless of who is judging sadly!

I had orginally intended to show an average amount this year and not do the really long journeys except for club shows, we do have quite a few in my breed and I love clubs show we have some really super ones. However my lovely boy has 2 CC's so are now going to quite a few shows I would not normally go to because of location and days off work, I think I have entered all the general champ shows up until the end of october except Belfast (that involves a ferry and I don't have sea legs). So I'm pretty skint now. :(

To answer MB's question it actually worked out cheaper for me to enter the World Show than Crufts taking into account over night parking fees in the UK, car park, etc.  And many of the shows I enter abroad are 20 Euro for the first dog then only 8 - 10 Euro for subsequent ones.   By the time I would pay around £50 to park for one night here plus the entry fees it generally is cheaper in Europe and Ireland.  Yes there is more petrol costs and ferry but the point is you get far far more for your money as an exhibitor abroad than the UK.  Decent rosettes, often a prize and / or keepsake trophy rather than a flimsy bit of card I could have printed off myself at home.  Sit down and work out based on entry numbers how much some of these shows are getting in entry fees, trade stand fees etc.  Where does it all go?  Having run equine events for years I am fully aware of costings for shows - insurance, tenting, expenses, etc etc.

We were going to enter everything this year, chasing a third ticket -then we got it already at Crufts so decided to take it a bit easy. Shows we entered last year but not this were Birmingham National, Bath, SKC (May), WKC and Richmond. Even so it's been a rare weekend without any shows.

I don't even want to think what its has cost me this year to campaign my young dog, ok it has paid off as at 21 months old he has 2CC's & 3RCC's sooooo now hoping we get his 3rd in the not too distant future so that I can have a rest :) I now have his younger sister coming out and went to enter Driffield (I only normally show 1 dog at a time) to discover that the entries are going to cost me around £60!!!!!!  Really dont think I can afford to show the 2 of them at many shows as add the £60 entries on to an average of about £80 for diesel for each show and its positively scary!!!  My English friends always say they don't know how I can do all hours driving that it takes us to get to shows but to be honest that isn't the problem its the cost of it. 

We're in the same position with the Richmond entry requirement due to the JHA semis, I wouldn't mind, but unless our young dog matures into a swan in the next couple of weeks, he doesn't stand a chance in his breed class and I still have to pay the increased fee due to CC's that I haven't a chance of being awarded. 

We borrowed a dog last year but because of little time to get to know each other, not sure whether it was a good move or not.

You wouldnt begrudge the entry fees so much if the rings were nice and flat, the parking was nearby and not in a quagmire and the toilets were to the standard we all expect (oh & a decent judge helps)!

There seems to be a fair bit of talk about benching having had its day. I wonder which of the champ shows will be the first to try without it, and how much difference it would actually make to entry fees?

M.

Oh I do use my bench !  A poll was done regarding benching at our breed champ shows and the vote was to keep them.

I wouldn't be without it. 

It is one of the reasons I don't do many open shows. 

I don't want to have to take more than a show bag and dogs into the showground.

I don't plan on becoming one of the trolly and crate brigade.

>A poll was done regarding benching at our breed champ shows and the vote was to keep them.

ours voted to bin them :)

Think all our breed clubs have long stopped using them, and they're certainly not well used at general champ shows.

M.

I enter at least 3 dogs at pretty much all the General Championship shows but only get to about 1 in 4.
Problem is, when I enter I dont know which ones :-)

Isn't that funny ! similar breeds ?

I will admit I don't own a crate or soft crate.  Connor is very happy on a bench as is Maxy!  Charlie settled well in the unentered dogs tent at Richmond last year - earned him the name 'poppet'!  there is no way I was paying £14 NFC!

At open shows either I only have one dog ! and he's with us wandering round or by our chairs in shade if necessary tied to one of those metal stakes in the ground.  If more - similar or at the car with boot open! tailgate guard - seems easier at agility shows than showing though!

Would the answer not be to reduce the entry price and let people order a bench if they wanted one and pay for the bench as a separate item just as you do for a catalogue.

> Would the answer not be to reduce the entry price and let people order a bench if they wanted one and pay for the bench as a separate item just as you do for a catalogue.

I guess that this might be very expensive per bench when quantities were drastically reduced?

M.

they would still have to provide room for people to crate their dogs which would take up a lot more space than the benching, as no-one is going to put their crates side by side?

harkback must have entered a different world show to the one I did then!!! 90 euros a class, for a 2 inch bit of cheap ribbon and a the shortest time ive ever spent in a ring.....................tunnel crossing £45 each way plus £60 for hounds......., £360 worth of diesel........

i have cut back this year by not going to opens no more (apart from 2 clubs) its the petrol that stings me. me and the dogs love the benches!

Some of our breed Ch shows have stopped it.
Two of my dogs are not overly keen on benches the others fine.

The only issue for me is that if benching goes then I need space for my
cageing in the car and won't be able to carry any backseat passengers...
Plus have extra wide parking spaces to get them out of my rear passenger doors....
as they are 42 inch ones :)

Also if shows did stop benching...then you'd have companies that would have to make
staff redundant etc. So the knock on effect to get slightly cheaper entries may be alot
wider than most have thought about.

Plus it's nice to have somewhere to park your bum to take the weight off your feet if you
haven't bought your chair to the show.

On the otherside of the coin too (when just going to watch) it's nice to be able to see dogs or find people when benched.
Lots easier :)

It must have been a different WS!  I entered early so paid far less than you on entry.  Got judged fairly, well over the average UK time spent on each dog.  Beautiful rosette and trophy, plus 2 medals. For my breed no one abroad rates a Crufts win, let alone a UK title so the WS is far more presitgious as was shown by the superior quality and numbers forward compared to Crufts.  Ferry £63 RT, plus £10 for all the dogs return leg only, and diesel (i don't count the UK leg) £220.

> Would the answer not be to reduce the entry price and let people order a bench if they wanted one and pay for the bench as a separate item just as you do for a catalogue

Think I would have to have to agree with Nova... out of the last 2 years of champ shows (approx 20-25 shows) I can count the times I've used the bench on one hand.... hubby brought up exactly that about where would everybody go in the case of indoor shows or wet weather but surely we'd get used to it? 

I would imagine people would (or should) think carefully about deciding which shows they 'bought' a bench and which they didn't... obviously Crufts would have to remain a compulsory benched show... but WELKS?  Border Union?  Windsor?  Leeds?  Blackpool?  list goes on???

JMO

But who would pay for the extra ground needed for each exhibitor to stake a piece of, and why would the people paying for the benches have to subsidise this?

Think about it on average there are 2,500 dogs a day at a champ show, think how much room the benches take up, roughly the same amount of space plus space around each persons crate set up would be needed.

Where would people put their dogs?

If it is inside a tent, then it basically is almost the same as benching, will people have to take pot luck with scorching sun or rain?.

If around  the rings, how do you work out how much space will be needed around each ring?

How much caging space would Labradors and Goldens need around their ring?  If the cage areas are away from the rings then it is the same issue as with benching now, some people would not use it and cause congestion ringside.

We often find ourselves in my breed if following toy breeds that the toy breed have taken up all the space around our ring with cages, usually the shady side.  they do not leave once they are judge if they re first in the ring, and are there even before it is their turn.

One year we could not get into our Ring as it was the middle one of 6, with only one side to the outside taken up by a toy breed.  We had to ask them to be moved when they refuse to go.

If there was no benching then there would have to be room made for all the breeds in a given Ring to set up cages, at the moment you can ask them to take their dogs to their benches.  It's bad enough at the moment when breeds following or before yours are camped out around the ring not using their benches.

See no reason why there can't be tents for the cages and preparation of exhibits it is just that you would have a choice to pay for the actual bench or not. Those who never use a bench would pay to enter and for their area of tenting those who wanted a bench would pay the extra amount the supplying of a bench cost.

I am a bench person myself but if handlers would rather use a cage then they can pay for the space but not the bench.

Who's going to want their dog's cage/crate put slap next to another? The dogs might well go ballistic - but if they're put further apart they'll take up more room than benches would, so more space will be needed which could prove more expensive, especially if it's under cover (who's going to have their dogs crated outside in the pouring rain?).

No, stick with benching. It's far and away the most sensible, practical answer.

In my toy breed we generally set up all our cages and trolley and tables right next to each other. They are certainly no further apart than the benches, if not closer at times. I used to use the benching all the time, but mostly set up with the rest of my breed now, it got a bit lonely in the big tent by myself!

No benching used in the US except at Westminster (and a couple of others) and the system works very well.  You pay for allocated space, for example a 6 x 6 ft, or 9 x 9ft area - this is at the bigger shows.  Because everyone is used to it unlike this country they stick to their own breed areas.  Not like shows here (SKC prime example) where anything that is deemed to need a grooming table and a huge volume of luggage that would make Paris Hilton proud take up every square inch of ringside space of their own and any other rings in the vicinity. 

This year at SCK as previous years unless you got to our ring at 7.00am you could not get within 4ft of it by 8.30am for terrier and Afghan exhibitors who had spread out from their own ringside early on and for some reason feel the need to take up other breeds ringside space instead of staggering their set ups around their own ring.  And to cap it all when their judging had finished they all went off shopping leaving the tables, crates, and dogs ringside so you still could not access your own rings.  As per other Ch shows of course the benching tents were unused the whole day for a start off being out of sight and sound of your ring anyway.

The US shows are much smaller than ours, most only the size of our Open shows.

What you and I have already said about breeds with crates and groomign tables taking up space ringside would surely get worse with no benching?

Lucydogs is right, on toy day the benches are empty.

We sit at the ring side with our dogs an arms length away.
For the few who still bench and sit with their dogs on those days, I often wonder if they see Any of the judging other than their class.
Not something I would want to go back to.

In these days of high prices and falling entries, something show societies must be looking at.

Yes many US shows have entry numbers akin to UK Open shows but most are held on one day only with ALL BREEDS on one day.  So you get say 2,500 dogs (often many more) on one day so that equates to the same as a UK Ch show over 4 days of say 8,000 total entries with an average of 2,000 present per day.  Even the small US shows draw in excess of 1,000 easily unless they really are out in the boonies.

The additional space gained by not having benching could be allocated to larger rings with designated grooming areas cordoned off.  Or even the tents reallocted to indoor / outdoor rings with designated under cover grooming areas.  Those paying for space with crates / tables, etc woudl then be within earshot and sight of their ring.  Those not paying for space then could access the seating ringside BUT not be allowed to set up crates / tables there.

I would add too with the reports now of dogs being sabotaged on benches I certainly will not leave mine unattended there out of sight, even in a locked cage.  At least in sight of your ring you can observe anyone close to your set up.