"Sacha" wrote
after "Mike Lyle"
wrote:
Janet Baraclough wrote:
from "Bob Hobden" contains these words:

Often wondered if it's better to get there in the afternoon,
anyone
done that?

The mid-day is undoubtedly busiest and it quietens considerably
in
late afternoon. That's why I used to be near the front of the queue
at
8, take a sit-down lunch break reading catalogues etc during the
busiest time followed by some less-frantic area (greenhouses or
furniture perhaps) and return to the fray later as the other early
birds wore out and went home :-)

To strike a discordant note, I think the Chelsea Flower Show is quite
close to Hell on Earth. And that's just the Members' Day. I doubt if
I'll ever go again. The only thing of the kind I can think of which
was worse was when I once insanely went to the Ideal Home Exhibition.
I'd almost rather go to Glastonbury.

We have decided never to attend Chelsea again. By the time you've been
pushed, shoved, almost knocked over by the hordes of people (on Members'
Day, yes) you're tired, bruised, headachey and cross. Last time we went,
I
belonged to a club, just minutes away, where we had stayed the night
before,
so we turned up before the gates opened and were *still* caught in a
seething tide of humanity - and it was an intermittently rainy day. No,
never again. What a very great shame that the once-considered move to
Osterley Park never happened - loads more space!


With your connections in the trade I would have thought you could get
exhibitors passes from someone. You can then enter the show at 7am giving
you a whole hour without the public, only some celebs/royals about at that
time. We managed it a couple of times when a friend had a trade stand,
indeed one year I helped him set up, and walking around the show on the
Sunday evening was fun.

Not been for years, too many people (often talking rubbish), not enough
seats, and the whole day is too expensive for what it is.

** Remember two elderly ladies talking loudly saying how good it was that
this Dutch firm turned up each year, they were looking at the Kirstenbosch
stand! :-)
--
Regards
Bob
In Runnymede, 17 miles West of London