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Although Balmoral Show has reached out to many non-farming visitors in recent years, show organisers say that agriculture will continue to remain central to the event in the future.
Last year’s Balmoral Show was extended to a four-day event with an additional day added on the Saturday. Attendance over the duration of the show increased from 91,000 in 2016 to 115,000 last year, and a survey showed that there was a significant number of first-time visitors on the final day.
“We didn’t want to change the focus of the programme so that the Saturday just became a family-focused day. We were very adamant that the core of Balmoral Show would remain agriculture over the whole four days,” Royal Ulster Agricultural Society (RUAS) operations manager Rhonda Geary said.
However, as the event has expanded over the years, more consumer orientated exhibitors have set up at Balmoral and Geary says that RUAS is keen to promote the message that the show is not just for farmers.
She points out that getting non-farming visitors to the show can be a key opportunity for the industry to educate urban dwellers about primary food production, but she maintains that agriculture will remain the core focus of the event.
“If a trade stand pulls out that, let’s say, sells tractors, we aren’t going to replace it with someone selling cars or general consumer items. We will replace it with an agri-trade stand to keep that our core focus,” Geary said.
New investment
New at Balmoral Park in 2018 is an extensive exhibition hall, completed this spring, and measuring 5,500m2. Named after former RUAS president Dr EF Logan, the new facility will house all the cattle on show this year, and sits alongside the existing Eikon Exhibition Centre, opened in December 2015. The new building has divisible sections and will be used for a range of events throughout the year. Venue hire is now a significant element of the RUAS business with the one-millionth visitor to the Eikon Exhibition Centre expected in the coming months.
The RUAS has been successful in attracting major events to Balmoral Park given its location, just 15 minutes from Belfast, and along the main motorway to Dublin.
“The multimillion-pound investment that the society has undertaken with the new exhibition space is the third phase of our development at Balmoral Park,” Geary said.
The first phase was the purchase of the 65ac site at the former Maze prison in 2012, and the initial ground work for the first Balmoral Show at the new site the following year. Phase two was the opening of the Eikon Exhibition Centre in 2015.
Between the Eikon, Dr EF Logan Hall and a covered walkway between the two event spaces, there is 10,500m2 of indoor space at Balmoral Park, equal to three full-size football pitches.
Future development
Rhonda Geary says RUAS will continue to develop Balmoral Park in a phased manner. “It will be in line with the release of capital that we get from the old site at the King’s Hall in Belfast where there is residential development going on. As the funds are released through that, we will invest that in development at Balmoral Park,” she said.
“What we are doing next is still under review. It will really be dependent on the future growth of Balmoral Show and the expansion of our events business. We have no plans yet, but we will be looking over the next few years at what our next project is,” Geary said.
A slip road off the M1 into the site at Balmoral Park had been suggested in the past. However, Geary says there have been no recent developments on a new junction, particularly with the political impasse at Stormont and no Infrastructure Minister in place to make such a decision.
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