The Herts County Show 2006
Building on the very successful 2005 Show, this year’s Herts County Show was enjoyed by over 25,000 visitors at the weekend.
Under the 2006 ‘Fun and Education in the Countryside’ theme, Show visitors clearly enjoyed the enlarged focus on traditional County Show events including prize winning livestock competitions, International Show Jumping, Heavy Horse displays, the Hertfordshire Farmers ‘Foxtrot’ dance, plus the enlarged educational Hertfordshire Food and Farming Marquee. This year’s main attractions of the Heavy Horse Musical Ride, Army Air Corps Marching Band, and the Jason Smyth Motorbike ‘stunt rider’ proved very popular. The 2 appearances on Sunday of the fabulous ‘Devils Horsemen’, drew the largest crowds, and the Show closed on Sunday evening with ‘arrival’ of the Royal Artillery Parachute Team in the Lafarge Ring.
This year’s President, Mr John Pigott, hosted a lunch for 120 invited guests on Saturday and the main message of his speech was a call for Hertfordshire residents and businesses to join the Society theme of ‘Proud to Promote Hertfordshire’. John Pigott’s plea for the County to promote Hertfordshire, received enthusiastic support from the VIP guests, which included Hertfordshire County Council and leading Hertfordshire based commercial organisation representatives. Caroline Tapster, Chief Executive of Hertfordshire County Council, thanked the President, and the Society, for ‘another excellent Herts County Show’, and endorsed her support for the ‘Proud of Hertfordshire’ theme.
Show Secretary Mike Harman commented: ‘We are absolutely delighted at the visitor
attendance bearing in mind the ‘wet’ Saturday, and the incredibly positive post-Show feedback confirms that we are now ‘back on track’ as a leading ‘traditional’ County Show. The well attended 3rd Food and Farming Debate held prior to the Show proved very successful, and positively confirms the consumer interest in UK farming and agricultural issues. A charity Sheep race held prior to the Debate, raised over £2500 to be shared between the Hospice of St Francis, Berkhamsted, and Grove House Hospice, St Albans. Our Children’s fun educational programme is going from strength to strength, and we will look to further develop the educational aspects of the Show with the Educational Authorities for next year. We are particularly pleased to see the number of Family tickets sold for this year’s Show exceeded our record 2005 attendance’.
Mike Harman added that ‘one major disappointment experienced on Sunday afternoon was the ‘temporary closure’ of the main Showground car park for 45 minutes, following police advice concerned about the deteriorating state of parking areas. This unfortunately resulted in some visitors being directed away from the Showground until the ‘unsafe’ areas were identified, and subsequently cordoned off. All visitors who had purchased ‘advanced’ tickets and were unable to visit the Show due to the temporary main car park closure, can obtain a full refund by returning their tickets to the Show office. We apologise for the disappointment and inconvenience, but sincerely hope that everybody affected will understand that the sole reason for the temporary closure was to protect our visitors from the risk of personal injury’.
