Duxford Flying Legends 2016 ticketing
 

A look at the Flying Legends website shows, if you plough through it all, that tickets are now advance purchase only.

Whoever thought this one up. Doesn't seem to say anywhere what the cutoff is - can you buy online on the morning ? But why change to such an inconvenient approach ? For many they decide on the morning, what is the wx forecast, did the kids throw up overnight, have I got time to go, etc. I know at least one person travelling from the US based around this, what if they don't book in advance - turned away ?

It's why I'm not going this year. I usually go Saturday unless the weather looks unspeakably awful... I'm not going to commit even days in advance to one day or the other.

Yep. Not a bit happy with this. Judging by the poor Saturday attendance on the May Saturday show, there were an awful lot of people of the same mind.
Last year, I had a friend arrive from Florida to see the Vulcan fly at Shuttleworth, and then go on to Legends. He did not arrive with me until late the previous day.
We did not discover that it was a sell-out until late the evening before the show. Despite having no tickets, we attended, explained our dilemma, and , without hopefully getting anyone in trouble, common sense prevailed, and we were admitted.
We were most grateful for Shuttleworth's sympathetic attitude to our plight, but will it always be thus??
Kenny is not coming this year, because of the ticketing situation.
Surely the only sensible answer is the one that my wife has just given. That is to have an inter-changeble ticket, valid for either day, but not both. Then it doesn't matter which day, Duxford still has your money!.
[She gets in free,'cos she works in the F.O.D tea tent!.The good looking petite blonde, but I would say that wouldn't I with her looking over my shoulder!]

Jem60. The problem with the interchangeable ticket is if the wx on Saturday is bad, then everyone goes on Sunday and they can't all get in as you can only have 10,000 people on one day and not all 20,000 the next.

I really think that Duxford has shot itself in the foot here. Why try to fix something that isn't broken in the first place. It worked for many years, so why change to advance ticket only.???

1. Banked non-refundable revenue, easier to estimate total revenue of event and book acts accordingly
2. Liquidity ahead of the event, reduces dependence on loans
3. And the big one: Simplifies ( and hence reduces cost of ) liability insurance by guaranteeing that no more people can enter the grounds than the number for which tickets have been sold and preventing surge attendance.

Relatively recent trend for aishows but common in other branches of 'entertainment' show. Which really illustrates the direction in which irshows have been headed over the past decade.

Thankyou. But none of the above is of any use to the average punter, who buys a family ticket, then can't attend, because a child is sick, weather bad, Granny dies, etc., What happens?.... He chooses not to buy a ticket in the first place. Duxford's loss.

I see tickets are still available for tomorrow, so no postal distribution, it seems to be done by e-mail. I wonder if you will be able to book "on the day" by phone from outside the gates.

I also discovered that, after all the panoply about needing a separate car park ticket, that these are actually free.

It looks like there has been a bit of thought given to the process, but the way the information is disseminated is the issue. It says there will be an email, but not lucidly whether you can show your phone or whether you must print it out - because buried in the FAQ it states that entrance tickets CAN be on your phone but you CAN'T park unless you have printed out the car parking bit, which seems decidedly un-joined up. Some people will have a printer readily to hand, others not. These sorts of things should be explicitly stated and not buried away pages down the website.

BBC weather currently saying showers Saturday am, cloudy pm (no indication of cloud base), Sunday cloudy am, part sunny pm.

Meanwhile large temporary road signs have gone up as far away as the M25 stating "Duxford Airshow advance tickets only".

From a friend who works there, it's also to reduce traffic congestion, on an instruction from the CAA, on all roads that will be close the the display line - Shoreham knee jerk?!