The Rutland Showground — Local services in Barleythorpe

The facilities of the hall venue was up to standard and met our expectations and requirements for our family celebration event. However, the manager made our guests feel uncomfortable by his incessant pestering. The manager would go from table to table alerting the guests of each minor incident. What should have happened is that the manager should have spoken solely to the ‘point of contact’ and allowed them to resolve it themselves. My guests were absolutely appalled by this management strategy and this horribly ruined the vibes. I was also hugely disgusted with the manner the manager shouted at the children at the venue to pick up their litter. This left some children upset. The manager has no authority or clearance to address the children, let alone in the manner that he did. This shows an abhorrent lack of professionalism, politeness and overall respect. Next time, never approach children especially as we are unsure, if you are...

We went for the Flower Show. In itself nothing amazing, but ok. However, we queued in traffic for over an hour due no traffic management systems in place around Oakham. I felt really sorry for all non-show traffic caught up in the mayhem. Then we were directed to the furthest car park. Not a problem in itself but we pedestrians then had to watch out for cars filling closer car parks. Logic and safety concerns would suggest filling closest first and working out until later in the day when and if back-filling was needed

It was a boiling hot day with no easy access to water. People only carry so much with them, if any! Stand-pipes on the site would have made the best solution but failing that places that just sold bottles of water and cans of drink would have been incredibly useful.

All in all it felt like it needed more thought. I regularly go to the much larger Heckington Show and it never has the traffic or parking issues I...

We visited on the Friday, the first day of the show. Unfortunately the entry organisation put a damper on the whole experience. The traffic was built up in all directions and our SATNAV was trying to take us on a long detour to get out of the queue we were in to join an equally long queue from another direction. We abandoned our car in a housing estate and walked the last couple of miles. When we got to the showground we found we had to queue to get entry. A very poor performance by the organisers. The pre-booked tickets allow parking and entry on any of the three days of the show, a very good idea. There were very few examples of gardens, we saw three. There seemed to be a limited number of entrants in the produce competition tent, maybe due to it being the first year of the event. We left early to enjoy a pleasant lunch at Gate's garden centre which we thoroughly enjoyed and...