We are legally obliged to limit capacity at Saturday’s show. We have now passed the point at which we could accommodate all those who have bought tickets to either session of the show in a single session, which means that the show has to run across two sessions as planned. However, neither morning nor afternoon session are full. At the time of making this announcement, 447 morning session and 544 afternoon session tickets are unsold. We are primarily a membership organisation and want to make the show as accessible to members and attractive to attend as possible, so with this in mind:
- We will offer those attending the morning session, as they leave the session, a wristband which gives them access to the afternoon session, until the capacity limit of the afternoon session is met.
- We will similarly offer those with tickets to the afternoon session, when they present their ticket at the Ticket Booths, a wristband which gives them immediate access to the morning session, until the capacity limit of the morning session is met.
- To be fair to all Show visitors, this will be on a first come, first served basis and only as explained above.
We have confirmed that there is no “wiggle” room on the number of visitors we admit to each session. We also need to be able to demonstrate to the authorities that we have controlled access to each session, so we will still need to clear the Main Hall and Atrium of visitors between sessions. We can’t guarantee the availability of capacity to the “opposite” session, i.e. the one for which you haven’t bought a ticket, so we’ll be transparent. We’ll therefore make a further announcement on Thursday, after ticket sales have closed, publishing the final number of tickets unsold for each session.
The basis on which we are having to run this year’s show is far from ideal. The Board sees this as the fairest and most open way to give the greatest number of visitors the maximum benefit from their time at this year’s show.
Alan Regan, Chairman & Membership Secretary