Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

The Big Day Out

During the Summer, I went to Coventry for The Big Day Out.

This was a trade show for those people, such as myself and coach companies, who organise excursions to places of interest.

It was held at the Ricoh Stadium, which was built a few years ago as the new home ground for Coventry City Football Club.

I was able to talk to representatives of a number of organisations and destinations, including Rochester and Amsterdam.

And there was a superb buffet laid on, with plenty of well made sandwiches and delicious fruit.

On a rather less upbeat note, getting there was not as easy as it should have been.

The bus company is one of those which does not give change. Now when arriving at Coventry Bus Station from Leicester, I had no idea which bus to catch. That was easily dealt with, by the helpful information staff. But of course I had no idea of the fare. Do you know what it is?

As it happens, I had the correct amount of change on me, but expecting potential passengers to be aware of the fare when they are not regularly using that particular service is less than helpful.

When actually on the bus, I saw the Ricoh Stadium approaching. I asked the driver to set me down at the relevant stop, which he did, but only after I had seen the stadium receding behind me.

The stop serves a shopping complex, and I had to walk for fifteen minutes to get back to where I was heading for. Later, of course, I had another fifteen minutes walk back to the bus stop.

I pointed this out to the reception staff at the stadium, but nobody could see that it was a problem. The attitude seemed to be that anybody of any importance would be arriving by car.

The industry should really start to get to grips with this sort of attitude and lack of thought for public transport users.