2020 Dinghy Show

Originally posted by patj One point that has been ignored: they are promoting the Farnborough centre as being near four railway stations. Well, I used to work in Farnborough many years back and can tell you it's a fair old walk from any of the stations to the airfield where the exhibition centre is. Most visitors will want to catch a bus and that adds more travelling time.

typical train journey from newcastle to farnborough is 5 hours, so thats a 10 hour round trip. the extra 4 hours travel makes it an unattractive day out.

Some people will be more inconvenienced, some will be less inconvenienced. Everyone was inconvenienced at Ally Pally one way or another and is well documented/moaned over the years. My gut feel is that overall, it is better for more people. And more likely better cost benefit for the organisers. I used to live in Farnborough and, whilst it's facilities are not impressive (the town centre is sh*te and to be avoided), most people are only going there for the various shows that take place anyway.

Edited by ttc546 - 06 Mar 20 at 2:05pm

I've enjoyed the show at Alex Palace and at  Pickets Lock before then and I've been probably 2 out of 3 years since the 70s.  As someone who travelled down from the Midlands it was about on the limit of what was sensible for a day trip. Farnborough adds too much time to make it a day trip for me so I won't be going to the show in future. Let's just hope the show gets enough additional visitors from the south to make up for the guys like me from the midlands and the north that probably won't travel any more. Personally I'd like to see the show get around the UK a bit and show that dinghy sailing isn't just a south of England pastime. 

LateStarter... you'll be fine when you have HS2!

So there are people from North of the Midlands saying they probably will still go, while the Midlands say maybe not?

Midlands is a big place so I thought I'd see what you might be worried about... I don't really understand!

Leicester to St Pancras - 1hr 15
Ally Pally is about an hour from At Pancras IME. So 2hr 15.
Leister to Farnborough - 2hr 40 add 10mins from station... 35minalonger...

I tried again with Matlock cause it's a bit more tucked away...
Matlock to St Pancras - 2hrs 33. So 3hrs 30 to AllyPally

Matlock to Farnborough - 4hrs 7mins.

So - again... Less than an hour longer.


These are based on National Rail Enquiries timings too. They involve going from St Pancras to Waterloo. Which NRE gives you 59 minutes to do it in. I recall doing it in summer as a child in 30 something with suit cases and children..

It's actually only 15 minutes on Tube. So by my maths you may actually be able to do it just as quickly.

Incase you are doing it by car - apparently you can drive it in 2hr 35 to Ally P (according to Google!) And 2hr 52 to Farnborough.