Sorry and all that, but I’ve got to ask how, by scrapping the Royal Tournament, you save money.
The servicemen and women taking part, get paid a handsome bounty for the evenings performance perhaps?
These personnel have taken the Queens shilling and are available, in theory at least, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year.
So salaries will be paid weather the event takes place or not.
Wear and tear on equipment and uniforms, perhaps.
Ah that’ll be it.
I forgot that all armed forces personnel walk round b@@llock naked all day and sit on the floor playing cards, as to sit on a chair, would cause undue wear and tear. They mustn’t, under any circumstances perform any useful work, might entail replacing an expensive spark plug in the MT pool.
Cost?
What cost?
Surely you make money from the event?
Television rights to show the event.
Always a full house, so a percentage of revenue from ticket sales. A percentage from food and beverage sales, programme and memorabilia sales, and with modern technology, film the event and produce a DVD of the evening, for sale as the punters leave!
If the armed forces seriously put their heads together, they could MAKE a fortune.
Look at all the reality TV programmes that have been around of late.
I remember some years ago, the local TV station close to a certain airfield in Wiltshire, filmed for two or three weeks, and managed to produce an interesting but all too brief glimpse of life on a military airfield. Expand it, make it into a series.
Day to day stuff – expand the MT section, and turn it into a commercial enterprise, servicing and MOTs for the local community – profits to the base concerned.
Logistics – local deliveries for farms and shops – profit to the base.
Catering for the community, school / church fetes.
The list could go on and on.
But cancelling the Royal tournament due to cost savings - Please.
