Overall, 0 stars out of 5. Unless you like lineups and stalled traffic, then it gets 6 out of 5 stars. I suppose that needs a bit of context, and fair enough.
The drone show (intro video here) was new to me and I quite liked it. Unfortunately the wind was too strong for the drone show on the 3rd night. They said the people that bought a one day ticket would get it validated so they could come back on Sunday. Meaning even more people in the facility.
The fireworks are better at Elliston Park, mainly because of the water and better sight lines. At Spruce Meadows the low level fireworks are completely obscured, and trees block the view for some of the audience.
Yes, there's lots of other stuff to do, at least as much as ever was at Elliston. Night Market, food trucks, cultural pavilions and displays in the buildings, show stages, and other stuff, almost all of which are secondary to us. Everything is really expensive, which is not a surprise. I mean, $11 for a can of cheap beer? Even the main stage was vacant for long periods. The background music sucked. The big tv screens often cut out. Much of this can be charitably attributed to the first time at a new venue, and a short time frame. Then again, Spruce Meadows opened in 1975, and it's been putting on big events ever since. You'd think they would have this stuff figured out.
But here's the killer, the issue that makes future attendance a non-starter for us. Crowd and traffic management is an epic failure, although I can't speak to the VIP traffic and parking. For everybody else there is one way into the park, through a one lane gate. There is 1 lane of traffic from the ring road, with a single lane left turn to join 2 southbound lanes of traffic on James Mckevitt Rd, (and no cop to more efficiently move traffic) plus 1 northbound lane of traffic on Spruce Meadows Way, which is really still James Mckevitt, plus a lane from Spruce Meadows Green, if they got on it back at the Tanbridge Academy at 53rd St. That is 5 lanes of traffic getting squeezed down to one. If you really know the local roads, there is another way in, but when we were in a position to see that road, it looked totally choked.
It typically took us a half hour from where traffic stopped out on the exit ramp, to getting parked. On Friday we were stopped on the shoulder of the ring road itself. That's the easy part. Then there is the walk to join the line to check tickets at a narrow little covered bridge. (Don't look for it on the map, I think it was added after google took that image.) There are only 4 or 5 people checking in thousands of spectators. From there, if you know where you're going, it's mostly straightforward to walk there, though the route is not obvious. The provided map was hopeless, the signs are essentially invisible, and on the first night the volunteers didn't have a clue. We eventually saw the area we were allowed to go, but had to backtrack to get to the one small gate in the fence.
Getting out is the true horror show. We first have to get out of our paddock, through the one gate. They don't open the fence up. Then through another choke point near the flags and battle tank. Then through a display and eating area, into another chokepoint. Then along a long fenced road and sidewalk ending in a little zig zag path obscured by trees, leading to that little covered bridge I talked about. It's about 4 or 5 people wide, and there are thousands of people shuffling along to cross it. The lighting is terrible, with a few brilliant advertising signs destroying what night vision we have. There are curbs and speed bumps to trip over.
Then out into the parking lot. Several parking lots. It never took less than 30 minutes just to get on the access road, and once was an hour. Then it's stop and go along the road and around a roundabout, a hard right turn, then a hard left turn, then out the entrance gates to freedom, all while keeping a sharp eye out for erratic pedestrians.
We saw one instance of road rage on the way in, and I would be astonished if there were no other instances of it. I'll also be astonished if no pedestrians were struck by cars, since some of them are shambling around like half slaughtered sheet trying to find their car, and drivers are desperate to escape, driving through ditches and playing chicken with other drivers.
I've no idea how an emergency vehicle would get in. The cars are packed so tightly there is nowhere to go. Someone having a heart attack from the stress is going to die. Yes, they have people waving their lighted wands trying to help the traffic and make it safer for pedestrians, but no matter how frantically they wave the wands, there is nowhere for the traffic to go. This has to be fixed, but I've no idea how.
I wrote all this on Sunday afternoon, as we looked at the scudding clouds and every weather update. The wind speed will cancel the drones again, and no idea if there will be fireworks. It's going to be windy and cold, waiting for the fireworks, then the gong show of getting out. I couldn't face the possibility of a "Sorry folks, for safety reasons we have to cancel the fireworks," and then deal with a horde of cranky drivers. We bailed, and just finished a nice dinner and glass of wine.
Here's a comparison. Where we sat was down in the bottom left in that rectangular grassy patch, near the corner of S Meadows Rd and Tournament Lane. The three messy black dots are about where we parked, with the closest one to where we wanted to was by far the longest to get out. The black line is about the path to walk to the viewing area, with the choke points marked with a circle. Yes, it's really crude. For scale, walking from the bottom left to the top right parking spot was 1.5 Km. The fireworks were just off the left of the map in line with the rectangular area. Our seats were about as good as they get, with the fireworks appeared to be almost above us.
