Shambolic Showbus

A tale of woe from Woburn...

Showbus has firmly established itself on bus enthusiasts' calendars and claims to be Britain's biggest and best bus rally, but that claim must be in doubt after the experience of the 2015 event yesterday. In recent years it had settled at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, a well suited if expensive venue, but with the museum no longer willing to host the event an alternative had to be found and this year it returned to Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, where it had last been held in 1992. It had been nine years since I last attended a Showbus rally, but with Woburn being a simple 20 mile journey from home I felt it was worth a visit this time. Little did I know of the controversy that was about to unfold and ruin what had once been a premier event. Showbus has thrown off its old nickname of 'Showerbus' and taken on various new ones including 'Slowbus' and 'Shamblesbus'...

Woburn is not as suitable a venue as Duxford, but was further let down by what can only be described as rookie mistakes by the organising team, who supposedly have many years of experience running this event. To be honest, things didn't get off to the best of starts for me: my family had decided to combine my trip to Showbus with a visit to Woburn Safari Park, so I was dropped off at the main entrance to the abbey just after the 10am opening time and walked to the admission booths. They were running a pay from your vehicle entry system with both cars and buses using the same entrance, so queues were already starting to build, compounded by a frustrating schoolboy error of directing the buses to the nearside booth where an overhanging tree risked damage to double-deckers.

The admissions staff were completely unprepared for visitors arriving on foot. After managing to get to a booth without being run over by queuing traffic, I was told to follow the footpath as walking on the driveway was forbidden. This turned out to be a rutted track that eventually gave way to nothing more than a mown strip across a field covered in deer poo, and took such a long and meandering route that for most of the journey I could see neither the abbey nor any buses and wondered where on earth I was going. That long walk meant I was tired before even arriving at the rally site, but it was still quicker than driving as I saw the bus that had been behind us in the queue through Woburn village finally arrive about half an hour after reaching the entrance, and this was before the incident...

The incident?

This will almost certainly go down in history as the incident that hammered the final nail into the coffin of Showbus and was a very public humiliation. Within the first hour, four vehicles had already become bogged down on the soft grass and required assistance, and then at the peak arrival time came the one that caused utter chaos. A double-deck coach got stuck with its back end hanging over the only access road, right at the entrance so it prevented entry to the entire rally site and the queue of buses stopped dead. After an hour of trying to move it under its own power that succeeded only in digging it into a deeper hole, a recovery vehicle arrived, which fortunately was already on site as there would have been no way to get one in through the queue. This promptly also got stuck and had to be rescued with a JCB Telehandler, and the same machine eventually succeeded in freeing the coach, which was then driven to a firmer area. Needless to say, this activity soon drew a massive crowd and no doubt many photos and videos were taken to provide a permanent reminder of this humiliating incident.

The first stuck coach. Its owner was well and truly cheesed off.

All of this soon meant a massive queue of vehicles along the abbey's own roads and right back into Woburn village, with exhibitors reporting over two hours to get from the village to the display area, a distance of less than two miles, and they were simply left to sit in the queue with very little information given about what was going on. At one point, the police were reportedly forced to close the main road through the village and were on the verge of shutting down the event, such was the gridlock it caused. The access road is single-track with no passing places so it was impossible for the trapped vehicles to go anywhere, and many of their passengers gave up waiting and walked into the site. As walking on this road is not usually permitted, there are no footpaths so once again this was a difficult walk on soft poo-strewn grass.

The view of the entrance road at lunchtime. Buses further than the eye can see.

I hung my head in despair at what happened next though. The queue had finally started moving at a decent rate when the organisers tried to park another coach in the place where the first one had been stuck. You can probably guess the result; yes, this one too got stuck in exactly the same way and caused yet another blockage. The last exhibits finally made it into position just after 2pm, by which time some of the earlier arrivals had started to leave, and ended up parked in a jumbled manner as many avoided their designated spaces in favour of firmer ground, which upset many photographers by depriving them of the 'perfect' shot. More seriously, I overheard a number of drivers complaining that sitting in the queues for so long had used up their hours and left them with insufficient rest time to allow them to do their scheduled duties the following day.     

Deja vu. Another stuck coach in the same place.

Inevitably the internet quickly filled up with negative comments about the shambolic nature of the show, and many visitors and exhibitors have already stated categorically they would never again attend an event at Woburn, but the official Showbus website admits only to some vague 'problems'. Apparently this venue is well known for poor ground conditions and similar incidents have happened in the past, which was one of the main reasons for moving away in 1993, and the event has grown considerably since then but the organisers seemed woefully unprepared. The weather stayed dry all day, which was extremely fortunate as I dread to think what would have happened had it rained. It is a great shame as Woburn Abbey is a beautiful venue but just isn't suitable for an event featuring so many large vehicles with its poor access, lack of facilities and soft unclean ground. My sympathies go to all of those affected by this farce that ruined what should have been an enjoyable day out, and the Showbus team will have to pull out all the stops in future to restore the event's tattered reputation.
 

The recovery truck after being unstuck and returned to the display.

Having described the organisational farce here, I intend to follow up later this week with another piece looking at some of the exhibits that caught my eye, as it wasn't all bad and there were many interesting vehicles to be seen.