I don't think there's a better place on the web to ask this question,

But, "How many shoots where your total cost of attendance from beginning to end exceeds $500.00, do you attend?"

I am willing to attend 3. 1 spring, 1 summer, and 1 early fall.
I don't see myself attending a winter shoot, nor more than 3 (of this type) during the other seasons, all well spaced due to logistics.

When I add in the other fundraisers, and regional "Pop in for a steak" shoots, I max out at a total annual number of a dozen or so.

This is just a marketing type question to spur some conversation.

Good question. We try to attend between four and six, supplemented by visits to local courses in the tri- state NY area. Some like the Parker fun shoot in April at Addieville are day, albeit long, trips, others like Haussmann's are two- three day affairs. We hope to make Rock Mountain in September an annual affair, like Hiddden Hollow, bookending the summer, preceded and followed by local day trips. Cost is always a factor but quality or fun is too, and we no longer go to events that are less fun. For us getting off Long Island is the most difficult task, as is returning, and we often bypass NYC and take the ferry from CT.

I hadn't thought about regional cost differences. Getting a hotdog in Manhattan could go over $500.00 LOL

I just wonder if stacking shoots weekend after weekend undermines interest.

The southern in April, the North East and Great Northern in June and Duluth in July. Would like to attend some of the September shoots but my dogs won't let me!!! Also do some of the bigger shows around the country.

None for clays. whether open as to shotgun choices, or limited to side-by-sides. That $500 buys me three tower released shoots at our area pheasant club, held on Saturdays from Jan through April-- 10 stations around FULL CIRCLE, GOOD SAFE TOWER FOR THE guys who get the roosters and hens airborne, great dog work, lunch and a fine pick-up hunt apres lunch. No booze, safety rules and zones of fire strictly enforced, and all guns must be open and unloaded between stand and en route to and from the clubhouse to the shooting field. You are guaranteed birds, picked and bagged in Zip-Lok bags to take home, and pen raised pheasants sure taste better than those skeets do-- And way cheaper that a 4 day trip in Nov. to SD--

I get my off-season practice on barn pigeons and crows and starlings- clays are great, and SC is a social game like golf- but no clay thrown by a machine can replicate the flight of a blue rock pigeon who has just side-slipped away from a charge of No. 8 chilled- IMO anyway.

Here in the lower part of Michigan you can attend three shoots, April, May [ mine at Lapeer ], and June, that are one day shoots for less than $500 total. Each are in the $50 entry price range and they include shooting and food. Don't get no better.

RWTF; That sounds like a heck of a deal!

R.

Well for me and my shooting partner (Rich) we go to the Southern to see old friends and the vendors and then have a fun shoot at Drakes Landing Thursday all day, Friday and Saturday morning and then back to Deep River, Haussmann's and the Great Northern (this is a not to miss shoot) in June and then we are thinking Rock Mt in the fall. Locale shoots maybe a half a dozen or so, but those are all fun shoots, one day shoots

Dozens and dozens ..... and they pay me!

Until recently I was picking up on an average of 60 days per season and getting the equivalent of $55 per day. Now I'm just doing some beating (no dog) so the pay is less.There was a time when I was buying 7-9 days per annum driven or walk / stand days.

I can't add in the pigeon shooting because CZs formula doesn't allow cost neutral days, but that was around 35 days afield per annum. I could exchange 11 pigeon for 25 Express cartridges, so that was a fair deal.

Eug

You and I are so lucky Eugene!

People that don't go to shooting facilities to shoot, really shouldn't bother to respond.

I'm more curious about someone that goes to clay shoots as an entertainment/shooting event and spends more than $500.00.

I like to shoot, so, I shoot regularly. I know many collectors do not, and people essentially age out of this venue. $500.00 is a good hurdle rate for the discussion.

I heard that by comparing email lists, it was found that there are actually less than 100 traveling SxS aficionados nationwide. That means that competing extravagant shoots are pitching to the same people week after week for relatively little to be gained.

That list doesn't include whatever dependable regional pool a club draws from. They aren't above the hurdle rate for costs to attend. My club is very comfortable running a good shoot that serves 65 people or so on 1 day every spring, and people seem to look forward to it as a kind of season launch.
But again, mostly locals/regionals attend.

I'm probably not your target audience, but I'll weigh in. I go to 3-5 local shoots per year (the $50 kind), and went to my first $500+ this year (Southern). I probably would go to an expensive shoot maybe every couple years. I've had far more fun and a better experience at the local shoots than the Sourthern was

I don't have a target audience.
The shoot at my club is as big as anyone can stand it to be.
You can only stuff so much sausage through the tube, before the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

I am not even involved in it's planning or operation. I'm just a guest as anyone else is, and I may/may not try to get some people to come out, or, do a little volunteer work trimming or staging, just to help out a little.

But I think the "less than 100 people" actually crossing that economic hurdle suggestion might be accurate.

And that effects the non shooting aspects of these get togethers.

Some of us are more crazy then others. I retired in 2002 and moved from Northern Virginia to near the Washington/Idaho border. So, it has been about a 5700 mile round trip for me to attend The Vintage Cups in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 & 2013 and the NE Side-by-side at Ernie Hauseman's in 2015 and 2016.

Dave, I'd surmise you cross the barrier every time you choose to attend something.
You have a much longer term view of this than I do, "How many travelers would you say there actually are?"

My experience is probably irrelevant for your research as I am in the UK.

No one single day i attend exceeds $500 in GBP equivalent.

Typically i will shoot between 8 and 10 days a season.

Shooting and beating combined i am probably involved in around 20 - 25 shoot days per season.

I also probably spend a total of a week carrying out work on land we shoot over.

My shoot days are generally low cost traditional local and social shoots as apposed to a shoot which is run as a business of the type well represented on youtube and in the sporting media.

What on earth is tower released pheasant shooting? It sounds like an abomination I am imagining guys throwing birds from a high tower?

Hauseman's? Houseman's?--one of the best in the East, so I have heard.

When I was a member of NOBS, I made the mistake of answering that question.

My answer now is "It is all you imagine, and worse."
Please ask no further about it.

I would guess the UK analogue to my question would be "How many overnight shoots does a UK shot attend in a season?" Similar cost (per GOP), similar difficulties to attend (travel, room, what not)

I know I am using the Americanized version of "shoot" referring to clay target events, and my UK friends are more referring to "game shooting days".

You have pretty much described the practice. Throwers are in a reinforced box with cages and cages of pheasants. Well, mostly pheasants; one I attended got a rhode island red hen mixed into the bunch and someone threw her out of the box.

The sports surround the tower at a distance of about 100 yards, and stand behind big hay rolls mostly for protection from other shooters. The bird box and throwers are lifted maybe 125 feet into the air by way of a scissor lift.

By the way the rhode island red hen was the smartest bird in the mix. She fluttered down to the ground and hid under the scissor lift. I was pulling for her all the way and hoping no one would shoot the old girl.

Never been back to do that again...Geo

Cheers to those for explaining the process - i don't wish to derail the thread so i think we can close any further explanations on the subject.

Far be it from be to say to others whats right or wrong, but it seems on its travel over the Atlantic Ocean there was some miscommunication on the true spirit of game shooting. Abhorrent as the idea is to me i can see why it makes an attractive and no doubt lucrative business, but at what cost.

We colonists can't afford the landed gentry estates a la Downton Abbey- and the high cost of beaters, pickers uppers and doggy handlers. Our club has about the same, we have 10 stations set back about 80 yards from the center reinforced tower. We can have a maximum of 20 shooters, whether on an open event shoot, or on a private shoot-Safety rules are 100% enforced.

Only one bird at a time is released, tossed up airborne, and no bird may be shot at (*) if if falls into the circle- and that does happen with hens every now and then. Weather is a predicate- a nice gusty overcast day with a strong luffing Westerly wind- best you can get- and no "Hun in the Sun to blind you" in the AM. Another of many reasons why we rotate clockwise with unloaded shotguns after every ten birds have been tossed skyward. Also that policy gives the dog handlers with their Labs a fair chance, until the dog comes back with a bird, dead or about to be, no other bird(s) are tossed.

We get a 200 bird release and a lunch, coffee, etc and cleaned birds bagged and tagged for $165.00 Cheaper than a trip to SD, and apres luncheon, we have a pick-up hunt, which usually adds more birds to the net bag. We had 16 shooters the last time I shot there on a mid-March Sat. 2016- and with the dogs and the pick-=up (not all tower shoot guns care for the walk to get the pick up birds and possible lay cripples), we accounted for 189 birds from 200 released from the tower- in blocks of ten.

As I am responding to a Limey, I'll borrow syntax from the fat cigar chomper (and fair painter too) Sir Winnie-- "birds that have been shot at- is not proper grammer, and Winnie was a stickler for that, as also was my late Mother, a HS English teacher with a P.hD. in English Lit. So, "Birds at which shots have been fired?" how does that grab your Limey arse? Come over to MI sometime and I'll take you as a guest- see how much of a challenge our club's Tower birdies can be in Feb. Mar. and April.

I use a 1937 12 gauge Tournament Grade Model 12 Winchester pumpgun 30" full choke (My Gough Thomas special)or a 1933 12 gauge Eagle Grade L.C. Smith live bird gun with 32" barrel and also full chokes- AA handicap trap loads with 7&1/2 high antimony chilled shot for the first shot, and Remington Express No. 6 1&1/4 for the second or back-up shot in the Model 12-- Just the AA Handicap loads in the Elsie, I don't care to shoot express loads in my L.C. Smiths- nor would I if a owned a Boss or a Holland& Holland for that matter. 1300 fps loads and fine sidelocks, mix like bangers and mash with salsa..IMO

RWTF
Thanks for taking the time to explain how the days are run.