Day 16 - On return from the Göteborg Horse Show
What a great show!
The Scandinavium venue seems almost perfect, it seats 12,000 for sporting events but is small enough to allow almost everyone to get up close. The Swedish crowd are also great, they really know how to support their own favourites but they are great sports and also know how to appreciate talent regardless of nationality.
Here are some shots of the venue from up front, ringside.
The corporate boxes are in the distance, up on the wall. I doubt they had as good a view as we had at ringside though.
I was cheeky enough to score a VIP guest pass from the Show Director, this was especially good because tickets for Saturday and Sunday were sold out and I would have had to use the scalpers outside otherwise. There were quite a few scalpers wandering around outside trying to re-sell their tickets.
I am not sure how successful they were and I never bothered asking them for a price.
The Press were seated in the red seats up on the right and below them were riders and arena officials on the Green seats. This was the only area that I could see that had access to the arena itself.
This is the crowd that was waiting for the start of the Dressage Invitational
competition. It was more crowded for the Show Jumping. On Saturday it was about 90% full and 100% full on Sunday for the World Cup final.
The arena surface seemed ideal. I must find out what it is made of. It looks like some sort of clay but it didn't need watering and didn't give off any dust. It seemed to provide a good footing for the horses with both grip and give.
The presentation was superb with lots of fresh flowers and great
attention to detail. The jumps and props were cleaned after assembly to ensure that they looked their best. Even the blue plastic sheet that they used as the base for the water jump was meticulously wiped clean before the jumping started. The arena party were very efficient at taking down one set-up and then putting up the next one. Typically they did this in 15-20 minutes at the most.
Here is a shot taken during the course walk for one of the events
on Friday and it shows the great set up, just prior to having its final surface groom.
I especially liked the trike that they used to groom the arena
surface and I want this guy's job. He had lots of fun scooting around as fast as he could to prepare the surface for each event and his antics were especially enjoyable when the arena was set up for Show Jumping because there was much more obstacles (and people) for him to drive as close as possible to, at the fastest possible speed.
Here is a better shot of him really enjoying himself.
I only took one shot of the show jumping (this one)
because I was concentrating on using the video camera so that I would be familiar with its use once I start using it for my research. My camera also isn't up to taking high speed shots, even on flash and so this shot is a little blurry.
I will post the video once I get it off the camera (a good test).
There were some superb horses there but I don't have any photos of them because I alternated between shooting video footage and watching the show itself. I am glad that I didn't try to video everything because when I am concentrating on shooting the video I find that I don't actually see much of the event itself. It is much better to watch the event live.
There was also a huge exhibition area that contained lots of booths of people and companies that do business in the equestrian area. I found that most of the gear for sale was much more expensive than it is in NZ but there was one very big booth that was always crowded and they looked to be the Swedish equivalent of our Saddlery Warehouse.
Outside of the show I enjoyed Göteborg, it definitely has a different feel to it than Stockholm. It probably helped that my bed & breakfast accommodation was in the basement of a free standing house with a small back lawn rather than in an apartment block. The accommodation itself was cramped and over-priced but the setting was nicer and closer to what I might expect in NZ.
I was disappointed that the hosts never appeared and so I had no chance to chat to them. They were also into horses and they had a newish single float parked out front. I think that the neighbourhood was probably quite an affluent one as most houses were free standing but there were blocks of apartments a couple of blocks away. I shared the accommodation with a Finnish guy (he had his own room) who was in town to attend the exhibition, he sells personalised jewellery made from horse hair. He was just as reticent as I find most Swedes and he wasn't at all interested in talking to me.
It was slightly warmer in Göteborg and there was more greenery and this helped me have a different perspective of the city. Public transport was again very good with trams operating in the areas where I wanted to go. Apparently the local geography prevents the digging of tunnels for an underground train system. The full reason for this got lost in translation from Swedish to English.
On Friday night I craved conversation and so I went exploring down-town and found an Irish Pub with lots of noise spilling out onto the street and I went in for a beer. The pub was crowded with a mixture of loud, drunken Irish people (Duh, what did I expect to find in a loud Irish pub) and (mostly drunk) Swedes.
My intention was to only have one beer and to conserve that until I could strike up a conversation with someone. Conservation being almost a necessity at NZ$12 for a pint of beer! One of the American staff at KTH in Stockholm had suggested that most Swedes will not talk to strangers unless they were suitably drunk and then they would share their life with you but would ignore you again the next day once they sobered up.
I moved away from the bar to avoid the loud, drunken Irishmen with their sundry hangers-on and sat down at a table that became vacant as I walked past. I was soon joined by three very merry Swedish ladies who had obviously practised their drinking at home before they came out. We had a short, interesting conversation before they left for greener fields and were replaced by a nice Swedish couple who both worked as mini-bus drivers for the local elderly and handicapped.
I am not sure if they would have avoided me the next day as suggested by my American colleague (as I didn't see them the next day) but we did spend until 2:00am in a most interesting conversation and in the process I (naturally) had to sample three or four more beers, especially as they insisted on shouting me a beer and then I needed to shout them back.
The lady's son had been to NZ and he had given her good reports and so she was very interested in talking to me as a possible representative of a typical NZ'er. The conversation flowed with the beer and covered all sorts of interesting topics such as: Why they chose to drink in an Irish pub? She said because she liked London, I did hope that none of the drunken Irishmen had heard her say this and apparently none did because she was not attacked! How her daughter was interested in horses until breaking her arm while riding and how the woman was scared of horses, the two not being connected.
We broke off the conversation at 2:00am when they decided that they needed to go home and get some sleep before going skeet shooting the next day. I had been so engrossed in the conversation that I hadn't noticed the time and emerged into the cold to find that the tram that I expected to catch had stopped running. There were quite a few people still around on the streets but most of them looked well tanked up and so I avoided them and found one of the few non-inebriated people to ask how I might get back to my bed and breakfast accommodation? Unfortunately, the only non-inebriated person also turned out to be the one person who hasn't spoken English so far and so after gesticulating and pointing to the timetable that indicated that my tram had stopped running I was pointed off in the opposite direction.
Trusting in Swedish goodwill, I headed off into an area of the city that I hadn't been in before following the general direction of the pointed finger, modified by my decision to at least follow the trams tracks, reasoning that if I followed them then I might encounter a tram sooner or later.
The pointed finger and my reasoning proved a winner when after 15 minutes walking I came across a relatively major tram stop with another set of timetables that indicated that a tram that would take me home was headed my way in 10 minutes time. The tram duly arrived and I did indeed get home around 3:00am despite missing my stop and having to find my way back, in the cold and dark, to a street that was not so easy to recognise from the opposite direction.
For the rest of my stay I stuck to the horse show and travelling back and forth over known routes.
I had brought some one page flyers with me to use to introduce my research to people in the hope of gathering useful contacts for riders once I returned to Stockholm. Bringing the flyers (in Swedish) was a good idea but I had great difficulty given them out because most Swedes were very standoffish and did not want to talk to me. They seemed very suspicious of me. It probably didn't help that despite trying to target people that I thought looked as if they weren't locals, most of the people that I did manage to talk to were not from Stockholm and so weren't much use as contacts. Some people were, however, very interested in my research and were very keen to be involved. I will see how many of these actually turn into useful contacts over the next week or two.
I almost gave up asking people but on the return train journey to Stockholm I spotted a woman reading a horse magazine in my carriage, just as we entered the outskirts of Stockholm and so I figured that she was a good person to approach and indeed she was. She was very interested in the research and the two people sitting next to her were also horsey and they were also interested and promised to get back to me this week via e-mail.
All-in-all, a very interesting and worthwhile journey.
The Scandinavium venue seems almost perfect, it seats 12,000 for sporting events but is small enough to allow almost everyone to get up close. The Swedish crowd are also great, they really know how to support their own favourites but they are great sports and also know how to appreciate talent regardless of nationality.
Here are some shots of the venue from up front, ringside.
The corporate boxes are in the distance, up on the wall. I doubt they had as good a view as we had at ringside though.
I was cheeky enough to score a VIP guest pass from the Show Director, this was especially good because tickets for Saturday and Sunday were sold out and I would have had to use the scalpers outside otherwise. There were quite a few scalpers wandering around outside trying to re-sell their tickets.
I am not sure how successful they were and I never bothered asking them for a price.The Press were seated in the red seats up on the right and below them were riders and arena officials on the Green seats. This was the only area that I could see that had access to the arena itself.
This is the crowd that was waiting for the start of the Dressage Invitational
competition. It was more crowded for the Show Jumping. On Saturday it was about 90% full and 100% full on Sunday for the World Cup final.The arena surface seemed ideal. I must find out what it is made of. It looks like some sort of clay but it didn't need watering and didn't give off any dust. It seemed to provide a good footing for the horses with both grip and give.
The presentation was superb with lots of fresh flowers and great
attention to detail. The jumps and props were cleaned after assembly to ensure that they looked their best. Even the blue plastic sheet that they used as the base for the water jump was meticulously wiped clean before the jumping started. The arena party were very efficient at taking down one set-up and then putting up the next one. Typically they did this in 15-20 minutes at the most.Here is a shot taken during the course walk for one of the events
on Friday and it shows the great set up, just prior to having its final surface groom.I especially liked the trike that they used to groom the arena
surface and I want this guy's job. He had lots of fun scooting around as fast as he could to prepare the surface for each event and his antics were especially enjoyable when the arena was set up for Show Jumping because there was much more obstacles (and people) for him to drive as close as possible to, at the fastest possible speed.
Here is a better shot of him really enjoying himself.
I only took one shot of the show jumping (this one)
because I was concentrating on using the video camera so that I would be familiar with its use once I start using it for my research. My camera also isn't up to taking high speed shots, even on flash and so this shot is a little blurry.I will post the video once I get it off the camera (a good test).
There were some superb horses there but I don't have any photos of them because I alternated between shooting video footage and watching the show itself. I am glad that I didn't try to video everything because when I am concentrating on shooting the video I find that I don't actually see much of the event itself. It is much better to watch the event live.
There was also a huge exhibition area that contained lots of booths of people and companies that do business in the equestrian area. I found that most of the gear for sale was much more expensive than it is in NZ but there was one very big booth that was always crowded and they looked to be the Swedish equivalent of our Saddlery Warehouse.
Outside of the show I enjoyed Göteborg, it definitely has a different feel to it than Stockholm. It probably helped that my bed & breakfast accommodation was in the basement of a free standing house with a small back lawn rather than in an apartment block. The accommodation itself was cramped and over-priced but the setting was nicer and closer to what I might expect in NZ.
I was disappointed that the hosts never appeared and so I had no chance to chat to them. They were also into horses and they had a newish single float parked out front. I think that the neighbourhood was probably quite an affluent one as most houses were free standing but there were blocks of apartments a couple of blocks away. I shared the accommodation with a Finnish guy (he had his own room) who was in town to attend the exhibition, he sells personalised jewellery made from horse hair. He was just as reticent as I find most Swedes and he wasn't at all interested in talking to me.
It was slightly warmer in Göteborg and there was more greenery and this helped me have a different perspective of the city. Public transport was again very good with trams operating in the areas where I wanted to go. Apparently the local geography prevents the digging of tunnels for an underground train system. The full reason for this got lost in translation from Swedish to English.
On Friday night I craved conversation and so I went exploring down-town and found an Irish Pub with lots of noise spilling out onto the street and I went in for a beer. The pub was crowded with a mixture of loud, drunken Irish people (Duh, what did I expect to find in a loud Irish pub) and (mostly drunk) Swedes.
My intention was to only have one beer and to conserve that until I could strike up a conversation with someone. Conservation being almost a necessity at NZ$12 for a pint of beer! One of the American staff at KTH in Stockholm had suggested that most Swedes will not talk to strangers unless they were suitably drunk and then they would share their life with you but would ignore you again the next day once they sobered up.
I moved away from the bar to avoid the loud, drunken Irishmen with their sundry hangers-on and sat down at a table that became vacant as I walked past. I was soon joined by three very merry Swedish ladies who had obviously practised their drinking at home before they came out. We had a short, interesting conversation before they left for greener fields and were replaced by a nice Swedish couple who both worked as mini-bus drivers for the local elderly and handicapped.
I am not sure if they would have avoided me the next day as suggested by my American colleague (as I didn't see them the next day) but we did spend until 2:00am in a most interesting conversation and in the process I (naturally) had to sample three or four more beers, especially as they insisted on shouting me a beer and then I needed to shout them back.
The lady's son had been to NZ and he had given her good reports and so she was very interested in talking to me as a possible representative of a typical NZ'er. The conversation flowed with the beer and covered all sorts of interesting topics such as: Why they chose to drink in an Irish pub? She said because she liked London, I did hope that none of the drunken Irishmen had heard her say this and apparently none did because she was not attacked! How her daughter was interested in horses until breaking her arm while riding and how the woman was scared of horses, the two not being connected.
We broke off the conversation at 2:00am when they decided that they needed to go home and get some sleep before going skeet shooting the next day. I had been so engrossed in the conversation that I hadn't noticed the time and emerged into the cold to find that the tram that I expected to catch had stopped running. There were quite a few people still around on the streets but most of them looked well tanked up and so I avoided them and found one of the few non-inebriated people to ask how I might get back to my bed and breakfast accommodation? Unfortunately, the only non-inebriated person also turned out to be the one person who hasn't spoken English so far and so after gesticulating and pointing to the timetable that indicated that my tram had stopped running I was pointed off in the opposite direction.
Trusting in Swedish goodwill, I headed off into an area of the city that I hadn't been in before following the general direction of the pointed finger, modified by my decision to at least follow the trams tracks, reasoning that if I followed them then I might encounter a tram sooner or later.
The pointed finger and my reasoning proved a winner when after 15 minutes walking I came across a relatively major tram stop with another set of timetables that indicated that a tram that would take me home was headed my way in 10 minutes time. The tram duly arrived and I did indeed get home around 3:00am despite missing my stop and having to find my way back, in the cold and dark, to a street that was not so easy to recognise from the opposite direction.
For the rest of my stay I stuck to the horse show and travelling back and forth over known routes.
I had brought some one page flyers with me to use to introduce my research to people in the hope of gathering useful contacts for riders once I returned to Stockholm. Bringing the flyers (in Swedish) was a good idea but I had great difficulty given them out because most Swedes were very standoffish and did not want to talk to me. They seemed very suspicious of me. It probably didn't help that despite trying to target people that I thought looked as if they weren't locals, most of the people that I did manage to talk to were not from Stockholm and so weren't much use as contacts. Some people were, however, very interested in my research and were very keen to be involved. I will see how many of these actually turn into useful contacts over the next week or two.
I almost gave up asking people but on the return train journey to Stockholm I spotted a woman reading a horse magazine in my carriage, just as we entered the outskirts of Stockholm and so I figured that she was a good person to approach and indeed she was. She was very interested in the research and the two people sitting next to her were also horsey and they were also interested and promised to get back to me this week via e-mail.
All-in-all, a very interesting and worthwhile journey.