Let me explain.
The Northern Lights Show circuit, I'm reliably informed, is a series of "local" shows in the North of England, culminating in this two-day Northern Lights Masters show at Arena UK.
There is an evening performance on the Saturday night, though it is only scheduled to go on until 7.50pm. There is also a "Matinee" performance on Sunday afternoon/evening, finishing at 7pm.
There are classes for everything you can think of, from veterans to pure bred foreign breeds, even a Chase Me Charlie.
Having never been to a Northern Lights Show before, we went to Arena UK imagining something along the lines of the North of England Show, which follows a similar timetable at the same venue. The difference could not have been more marked.
On Saturday morning the schedule had all rings except the Workers starting at 8am. As we waited with a couple of other exhibitors beside our ring at five to eight, it was clear that this was not going to happen. There were no judges in any of the rings, no boxes of rosettes, no stewards.
At five past eight the announcer broke the silence and told us that most of the rings would be five minutes late starting. We eventually got going ten minutes later. Not as auspicious start if you know our love of a well-run show. To be fair, most of the rings caught up time during the day and even had stood-down periods before Not Before start times, so credit where credit is due.
Let's talk about the workers. The show organisers had clearly decided to save a bit of cash by not hiring a course builder. The worker fences had been hired and a course built by the company they were hired from which was to be the same course for the whole weekend. There weren't enough stewards or volunteers for there to be an arena party, so poles were slowly put back up by stewards or even the photographer in the worker ring, who also helped them change heights, put fillers in etc. between classes. There was only one judge, too. This meant that the conformation section of each class had to take place immediately after a competitor jumped, elongating the classes and resulting in the worker ring running close to the evening performance on Saturday. Once again, though, credit where credit is due. Once the other rings would down for the day, another judge was volunteered to man a conformation ring in the adjacent arena and everything sped up considerably.
The evening and matinee performances were similarly chaotic. They started late, and competitors did not know what was expected of them when they entered the ring, except that they should be trotting. Every section had to be told to line up in a certain place, and then when results were announced they did not know where they were supposed to be standing for the prizes. Why was each section not told everything in advance in the collecting ring?
The photographer for this show was Equipics. My partner thinks the lady who runs the company is a lens cap short of a camera, but the photos were good. We really feel that they could do with someone who always mans the stand though. Each time we went to look at new photos, a different person was in charge and they were multitasking between chatting to people, printing images and processing cards from their photographers as they arrived. This led to frustrating queues which were not long but very slow moving.
The Arena UK facilities have improved over the years. The showers are much improved and the toilets are in good order. No complaints. The bar was doing good trade on Saturday evening and the outside cafe seemed to be busy throughout both days. We ate chicken nuggets and chips and chicken burger and chips and both arrived quickly and tasted excellent.