I thought the distant car parks (easy to get in and out of) and the free shuttle buses, were a good piece of organisation, but to be fair this worked only because there were so few visitors.
I have visited very sporadically over the last 30 years but my impression is that the organisers have milked the show mercilessly over that time period, and this has driven the decline, which was slow because the show runs only every 2 years.
In the 1980s the place was heaving, had absolutely crap facilities, toilets with 0.5" of liquid crap on the floor (had to be careful walking in sandals). Back then people tolerated such stuff a lot more but I think most people would have thought twice about going back - especially with kids. So downhill it went.
But I bet the real money is made on selling exhibition space, and that was pretty well sold out. Russia bought a big chunk of it
