Is inflation impacting Nationals Attendance?

I think some of the things that effected the attendance were class and venue related.

Last year the class were a little concerned ( in my view) about Largs so went to a lot of time and trouble drumming up support for the event . This year I felt they thought Brixham would sell its self and then suddenly realised with a few weeks to go that it hadn’t but it’s too late by then . People had arranged other things. 

Also re costs at nationals  there is more than just fuel costs. Last year once you got to Largs , you could camp on site or just park up your motor home job done . This year at Brixham , no camping on site, cars and motor homes have to pay to park in public car parks. You weren’t even allowed to leave your road trailer on site , you either had to find somewhere else to park it or the club would arrange for it to be stored at a local rugby club for a fee. It all seemed a bit of a ball ache to me , looking in from the outside side and maybe it put regulars off too , who knows.

It makes no difference to me , I won’t be doing the D-zero or any nationals ever again but maybe the D-zero should look at venues that are a little more cost and sailor friendly going forward . 

In their defence, being responsible for choosing a venue for any nationals is a c@@p job because where every you choose, someone will not be happy 

I was watching the D-Zero Nationals over the weekend as I had quite a few friends going down for it and noticed their attendance was right down in numbers with 27 entries at Brixham compared to last year's 56 at Largs. I would have thought that Brixham would have attracted a good turnout from a currently active class like the D-Zs and that would have compensated in some way for the effects of inflation / cost of living crisis etc, and I'd say it's unusual too see such an attendance drop the year after a Nationals in Scotland (even as a Scot I recognise that travelling north of Watford has it's challenges for some ). 

This is really a follow on to the Open Meeting thread, but are other classes expecting significant disruption to their major event attendance this year from the rising costs of fuel etc?

PS- Kudos to the 7 Scots who stepped up and made the 1000+ mile round trip to attend and support their class, even if it was largely blown off.