Live event to avoid car park headache

Car parking at this year’s Countryside Live will be virtually 100 per cent on solid ground as organisers look to host their biggest and best event yet and put behind them the disappointment of this year’s Great Yorkshire Show.

Heavy rains in July led to the show’s cancellation after the first day as many of the fields used for car parking became water-logged and unusable.

However, with 90 per cent of the attractions at the Countryside Live event set to take place indoors, organisers are taking no chances and intend to park most of the 10,000-plus visitors to the Great Yorkshire Showground on hard ground at this year’s event.

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Countryside Live celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and will feature the usual pedigree cattle and sheep judging, alongside trade stands, food stalls and a host of other rural-themed activities.

A few of the attractions cancelled at this year’s Great Yorkshire Show have been rescheduled to take place at Countryside Live, with the Tye Trophy and long service awards set to be presented on the Saturday and Sunday respectively.

But Bill Cowling, show director of Countryside Live, said the event remained very much its own event and that the truncated Great Yorkshire Show was not having a profound impact upon the preparations.

“We have not been massively affected by the Great Yorkshire Show, we have been building this event year on year and it is a very different show from the Yorkshire. We have not done anything hugely different, we have not really seen the need to.

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“This one is much less weather dependent. We have had a super response to the show in terms of entries which are at record levels.”

Mr Cowling said that the showground itself had recovered well from the battering it took during the July heavy rains that cancelled the Great Yorkshire Show.

“Amazingly, it has recovered rather well and in most places you would hardly know there had been any damage done. The car parks which were really muddy now look tremendous. But virtually all of the car parking this year will be on hard ground.”

The alteration makes a change from previous years and will see visitors parking under the sheep sheds which are used during the Yorkshire Show.

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New attractions this year will include the ‘One Man and his Pig’ show, in which handlers will show how difficult it can be to navigate a pig around an obstacle course.

For the first time there will be a number of different breeds on show, with the Rare Breeds Survival Trust making its debut with Irish Moiled and British White cattle, a Dartmoor Pony and 10 sheep breeds to view.

“It is nice to grow a little bit each year,” Mr Cowling said. We are hoping to add on to last year’s record-breaking attendance, another couple of thousand would be very nice.”

Countryside Live takes place on the weekend of October 20 and 21 at Harrogate’s Great Yorkshire Showground.

Ticket details

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Tickets for this year’s Countryside Live are priced in advance at £8 for adults and £4 for children, with a family ticket available for £22.

These prices rise to £10, £5 and £28 if they are purchased on the gate.

The show runs between 9am and 5.30pm on both days and car parking is free, with a shuttle bus set to run between Railway Road next to Sainsbury’s and the showground’s Blue Gate.

Tickets can be purchased by calling the ticket line on 01423 541222 or at www.countrysidelive.co.uk