Top Gear Live

marbar

does it cost extra to have a walk around and look at the cars?

Steve

It was extra for the 'paddock pass' where you get to go backstage and see the cars used in the show, but the general show is open without it, plenty of cool motors there.

marbar

ah right. don't think i'll be paing extra for that!
was there a bar in there or do they just turf you out pretty quickly?

Steve

There was a bar in the exhibition I think, didn't see it though.

erm, are tickets still available?

E92

I was at it today.....

it was 100% bloody amazing. The best €100.50 I ever spent. I was delighted from start to finish.

The stunt with the Fiestas was enormously impressive. It was my favourite bit of the performance, and the car football was really cool.

I know some people aren't keen on Clarkson, and I'm not very keen on him that much either but he was fantastic, especially his comment towards the end advising us all to "drive fast" at the end of the thing:D!

I even sat in the Alfa Brera and declared that I love the interior.

I also LOVE the look of the Opel Insignia, it looks stunning in the flesh, even nicer than the pics suggest. They had a 2.0 turbo SRi, which looks fantastic(though nobody will buy one of these unfortunately) and a CDTI(heaven help us, a bloody diesel at a petrolheads' show) Elite. It's a gorgeous car inside too, more like a premium German car than an Opel really. I know I'd definately have one before a Mondeo *provided* it fairly close to the Ford for driving pleasure. It doesn't look like a car that's 4.83 metres long either.

And the Veyron.... well what can you say. I'm in love with the Veyron, I don't care that it's not the fastest car around the TG test track, it's still a bloody amazing feat of engineering.

There was some other really impressive machinery too, I'm sure it's all been well and truly covered by now, but I absolutely HAVE to say that the Alfa 8C is an absolutely *stunning* car.

The Jag XF is similarly gorgeous, the only Jag I'd ever think of buying.

I think those Overfinch and Kahn or whatever the hell they're called Range Rovers are such a waste and genreally did absolutely nothing for me.

The only thing that spoiled the event for me was driving on the Naas Dual Carriageway going up and down.

For the love of God people, how difficult is it to drive on the leftmost lane on a 3 lane Dual Carriageway, unless you need to overtake :mad:?

Kila

Curvy Vixen wrote: »

You have the best seats to see the presenters if you are in Blocks E or F though either way they are beamed onto 2 screeens at the back.

This fills me with joy - my seats are row E block E. Judging by the seating chart posted elsewhere, and your comments, it would seem that I've got some pretty good seats for seeing what's going on. I'm heading to it tomorrow, and looking forward to it, despite the occasional negative comment about it.

v10

Kila wrote: »

Judging by the seating chart posted elsewhere

Posted where ? I'm looking for a good seating chart . Can you post a link ? Thanks.

Max_Damage

minxie1 wrote: »

we got parking at anglesea road entrance in the rds no hassle.....:):)
plenty of spaces inside too....:p

I parked on Shrewsbury Road, it was free parking after 7pm so happy days!

the beerhunter

my main worry in the aftermath was that that "our" 11am saturday best time in the reasonably-priced-lap was a con, but a previous comment allays that fear. fiestas were brilliant madness, paddock tour isn't worth the 10 minute wait to effectively be shuffled out a glorified exit. punters who haven't been yet, take your time staring at the motors on the way in as you won't get back to them.

ps ferrari fans: the real schumi isn't a hunchback .

Steve

Who won the football beerhunter?

the beerhunter

SteveC wrote: »

Who won the football beerhunter?

a travesty. 3-3 into the golden goal. a hamster-led irish team applied intense pressure but may's englishmen scored on a breakaway to decide the tie.

Steve

hehe, It was the nearly the same for us, went to golden goal (probably rehearsed) but hamster won for us in the end!

marbar

god i hope this is good tomorrow
i'm missing super sunday becasue of it

minxie

has anyone mentioned what they are making per day
5000 people each sitting paying between €100 €140 each
just on ticket sales alone they are pulling in €50/€60 k or
more on each show......

Steve

minxie1 wrote: »

has anyone mentioned what they are making per day
5000 people each sitting paying between €100 €140 each
just on ticket sales alone they are pulling in €50/€60 k or
more on each show......

yeah,we know.

Jealous much?

minxie

SteveC wrote: »

yeah,we know.

Jealous much?

a lot, lol

Ozeire

jabaroon wrote: »

Lads,

Just back from TopGear live tonight. Am genuinely very disappointed with the event. Was really looking forward and paid for the top of the range tickets including the paddock tour afterward.

The show itself did appear to be quite entertaining and got a good few laughs from the crowd. The actual stunts (etc..etc..) also seemed to be quite good, but it would appear that most of the people in the audience couldn't see most of the show because of the angle of the seating stands. I was approximately 2/3's of the way up (so up high) and for most of the show I could only see the roof's of cars whizzing by.

Then -- because everyone else had difficulty seeing, people were standing up and straining around in their seats to try and get a view. Naturally, this only served to make the situation worse for people.

I'm 6 foot tall, so if I was having a problem, I cant imagine what anyone under 6 foot saw! Maybe the aerials of the cars as opposed to the roofs!

As for the paddock tour at the end?....what a joke. They herded approximately 5000 people into a corridor that varied between 15 foot and 10 foot wide. The first 100 people in assumed positions at the edges of the walkway to look at the cars and take photos. The remainder were just pushed and shoved through the center with the occasional shout from a marshal say "Keep moving there folks please". For the entire length of the room I saw the front bumper of a lambo, NOTHING else! It was crazy. Every second person around me was giving out stink that they had paid for the tour.

When I got to the end of the tour, there was about 15 marshals standing talking to each other?

Complete total and utter waste of money in my opinion. If I could turn back the clock, I would have sold my tickets for whatever I could have gotten for them and watched a topgear re-run on DAVE.

</rant> !!

My god what show were you at jabaroon

I'm just back after the 2 pm show today and i was just great . We got there a bite late ok right on 2 pm but we got in . I'm not that tall and wasn't at the front was in bock D row N and could see every thing . The whole show from start to finish was amazing .

The 3 guys were there for the whole show . After watching them for so long on the TV it was great to see them live . Some of the driving stunts i don't know how they done them in such a small place .

The sounds n smells of the whole thing were great .

The show afterwards wasn't that all exciting but hey whole cares about that .

Well worth the €200 i paid for the 2 tickets . Rumors they'll be back next year and if true i'll be back again .

Everyone going tomorrow you'll love it Enjoy


Here is one video i took .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7EPqrzJSDM

randomer

minxie1 wrote: »

has anyone mentioned what they are making per day
5000 people each sitting paying between €100 €140 each
just on ticket sales alone they are pulling in €50/€60 k or
more on each show......

5000 tickets at €100 each is €500k, not €50k.

miju

E92 wrote: »

There was some other really impressive machinery too, I'm sure it's all been well and truly covered by now, but I absolutely HAVE to say that the Alfa 8C is an absolutely *stunning* car.

Agreed. Has been my dream car for a while and was hoping I wouldn't be disapointed seeing it up close. It really was an AMAZING looking car.

As for the show itself I have to say thanks to all the nay sayers here for lowering my expectations. I say that cos I was expecting the worst and instead had a great night out last night. Show was very entertaining and the cars on display were also excellent.


Only disapointment was the paddock tour which was utter, utter crap. Though was made entertaining by the fact half of the 7.30pm show crowd there with us kept leating like sheep / shouting they had no paddock pass can they get out please

Oh yeah and the 7.30pm Saturday show crowd got the fastest lap time so BOO YAA

Some quick pics below:

gooner4ever

SteveC wrote: »

We only got 4th! still better than all the london shows though.


Agree, was a bit naff alright.


Did you see the 2 girls in the yellow jumpsuits on some alloy wheels stand! jesus wept, I didn't get to see the name of the stand! :pac:

Route 66 Automotive was the company, best part of the exhibition besides the veyron

oceanfroggie

The tiered seating angle was a disaster and diminished what would otherwise have been a great show. We just couldn't see it and because of that I consider it poor value. One can guess organisers changed the arena layout to cram more seats in after the 1st round of tickets sold out. Greed IMHO. My 15yo son loved it so I kept my personal disatisfaction to myself.

The plonkers holding up their phones to take photos didn't help vision either. :bnh

Victor_M

I too would like to thank the Nay sayers, the expectation lowering negative/snide/smug commentary that is all to common on this forum meant that I went to the show expecting it to be terrible.

How anyone could complain about the spectacle that the lads put is shocking, it was one of the best live experiences I have seen, I went with 3 mates and we laughed our way through the whole thing, Fiesta's and Ferrari stunt driving was amazing and the football was hilarious, the car show at the end was, as Irish car shows go, very good, nice to see a Veyron in the flesh.

eringobragh

Went to the 5pm yesterday and though it was brilliant. I was half expecting ****e after a couple of negative comments. The Fiestas and Ferraris were briliant. It was well but together. I did notice james May disappear for a while every now and then but I suppose he wasn't supposed to be doing it originally. Car football was class.

100euros for a ticket is probably about 40euro more than it should be but hey I'm not a miser and I probably would have pissed it up against the wall any other saturday!!!!

Only let down was the Stig ****e and the end. I won't spoil it for anyone but WTF! Oh and the tiered seating was absolute bollocks! I'm 6" 1 and the amount of heads blocking the view ut my GF is alot smaller and found bits hard to see. Fair play to who ever was shouting sit the **** down to the muppets who kept standing upp in the stand accross from me.

All in all a good show!

SomeDude

Victor_M wrote: »

I too would like to thank the Nay sayers, the expectation lowering negative/snide/smug commentary that is all to common on this forum meant that I went to the show expecting it to be terrible.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. You went in with low expectations. Most of the posters at the start of this thread had either high expectations or none at all. The consensus appears to be that the tickets were overpriced, the paddock "tour" was a joke and that certain parts of the show were a bit cheesey.....The positives included good banter between the presenters and some excellent stunt driving.

joe316

Thought it was a good evening (first show on thurs), i expected to see the sh*te cars that you normally get at those car shows over here i.e. the last car show I went to a couple of years ago and the only car manufactor was Kia so to see the veyron, gumbert etc... in the flesh was a nice surprise.

show itself was more of what i expected, a tone down version of the live show and to be honest it was as good as it could be, especially considering the location. I know one of the drivers of the cars from the cool wall section and he was talking to the some of the event staff and they said that they had to restrict a lot of the stunts, fireworks etc... due to the height of the roof and dimensions of the rds. Shame really but cant really blame anyone for that.

one point was that i was disappointed with the disappearance of james for so long, since he's my personal fav i was looking forward to more of him. Personnally they did the cool wall segment right beside me so I really felt I was part of the show. I did enjoy it, and if you are going with a cynical attitude of nothing is good and "its not like the show" then of course you are going to be disappointed or if you didnt go but still feel the need to stick your oar in and slagg people off who did, please find somewhere else to rant.

finally im so proud that JC slagged me off for having a beard

have pics will post later

oceanfroggie

It could have been a great show - just a pity it was so hard to see!!!

Agree the stig end bit was a bit of a wierd ending. Some great stunts and phyrotechnics. Jezza was fast loosing his voice. Arena surface size seemed too small for what they wanted to do, and as I said angle of the tired seating was a total and 100% disaster blocking vision of the arena floor. When show was over the marshalls herded the crowd with cattle yard efficiency bellowing instructions from megafones like a 3rd reich concentration camp. The exhibits in the outer marques were less than inspiring. Felt sorry for the bored 4x4 drivers going around and around in circles over the ramps outside in the SJ warm up arena.

Max_Damage

Here's a few pictures I took: Feckers kept walking in front of the camera most of the time. :mad::























More picture here:
http://s181.photobucket.com/albums/x191/kazimann/Top%20Gear%20Live%202008/

It sort of made me depressed having to drive home in my Ford Escort after seeing what was on display!

qz

I went to the 11AM show today and I can honestly say that I was in no way disappointed. The three presenters were on top form though they had expressly stated that they'd been out the night before.

It was everything you'd expect, throwaway stunts that kept you gripped. Those Fiesta drivers! :pac:. And the cars that came out for the cool wall were stunning (there were audible gasps!, particularly the white R8.).

2 minor gripes: paddock area was too crowded and made it difficult to get a look at the exotics unfortunately, but it wasn't too big a deal. That and the music when the three 360s were on stage, there shouldn't have been any .

Here's a few (select) snaps.

qz

mikedragon32

Was at the 2pm show today. Fantastic show, very well put together. Don't know how real the lap in the reasonably priced car was, but all in all it was a good laugh.

Stunt driving was wll done.

Ireland won 4 - 2 (or was it three?) and Hammond's car ended up on its side at the end.

The Paddock was a serious let down. The marshalls are pretty rude seemingly putting the megaphones into peoples faces if they dare stop. Forget about asking them to step out of a picture too.

The exhibition was as expected and it was great to get up close to some serious machinery.

I'm upping some shots to my flickr at the moment and will put any up if they're worth the bother!