Glad you enjoyed your trip. Well I couldn't be 100% sure about ticket sales, there may be info on it in the next edition of Poppylines(The North Norfolk Railway Members and volunteers magazine), If so I will update this thread. I worked the Saturday and Sunday and I'd have to say the Saturday was busier but I couldn't say by how much. I don't think we were quite as busy as previous years but we were by no means quiet. Thanks for posting.
Thank you, I thought the £5 did more bad then good in discouraging people from coming in and buying Beers. I was in the Weybourne Buffet on Sunday and we had a group of around 10 walkers come in. They only wanted to come in to get coffees/Teas from the Buffet yet they still had to pay the entry(although they were able to negotiate down to £2 each with the person on the gate). We also had some annoyed passengers who couldn't get in/out of the back gate which leads onto a public footpath as it was locked to avoid people using it to get in for free. To be honest, some people who were exiting the station asked me if they could climb over the gate and I let them go over quickly.
IMHO Admission fees of this type are a double edged sword. On the one hand they generate some income but on the other hand they can create "dissatisfaction" especially when some prospective customers only wish to purchase food and beverage rather than see the additional attractions laid on.
Personally I would go down the no admission fee route and trust in the customers purchasing f and b, souvenirs etc etc. Of course a further complexity can arise when the f and b provision is not by the railway but by a private (profit making) concern and thus the event generates as much custom for the stall holders as for the railway itself. In which case the pitch fee needs to be at a sensible level but then again I know many? (all) stall holders want to pay the lowest pitch fee possible.
There is no one answer but again if you do not charge admission the railway has to go all out to "liberate" cash from the visitors be that donations, second hand book stall, tombola not to forget of course pitching for volunteers.
Annoying potential customers and upsetting the locals is never a good idea!
