Car Boot Sale Rant!

Icey77

For the first time in a long time I got myself up and out to the big car boot sale in Denham, Buckinghamshire.
(Mods, please let me know if I'm not allowed to name & shame)

I got there and was charged £3 just to get in :mad::mad::mad:

£3!!! That's what they were charging per person, not per car load of people. Sellers were charged £12 for a car or £15 for a van.

The guy collecting the payments agreed with me that it was extortionate and said that whilst people came the organisers would charge the money.

I will in future go to another, smaller car boot sale nearer home that charges buyers 50p to get in.

Are car boot sales expensive to get into around your way or am I just being grumpy and tight?

meg72

There is no charge to buyers at my local one.Think the pitches are quite reasonable too

valk_scot

I've never had to pay to get into a car boot sale.

Flibsey

no charge at one nearish to me, but the Dunton one I think charges and the pitches are expensive too. also people start queuing at 4am to get in!

Pink.

Hi Icey,

We have a board specifically for threads about car boot sales: Ebay, Auctions, Car Boot & Jumble Sales so I've moved your thread over there.

Pink

vax2002

Your local council may be interested in this, under the markets legislation you can not charge to enter a market.
car boots are markets.
You can charge for parking, but ASFIK not to enter the market itself.
Unless it is a designated arts and craft trade show and licensed as such by the local authority>
one here tried it, by 9.30 the council had them all locked up and the "carboot shut" , I will give them that in Leeds, they are red hot at stamping on public cons.

shellsuit

We used to pay 20p per person at a couple of boot sales, other than that, it was free.

£3?! That's daylight robbery!

Icey77

vax2002 wrote: »

Your local council may be interested in this, under the markets legislation you can not charge to enter a market.
car boots are markets.
You can charge for parking, but ASFIK not to enter the market itself.
Unless it is a designated arts and craft trade show and licensed as such by the local authority>
one here tried it, by 9.30 the council had them all locked up and the "carboot shut" , I will give them that in Leeds, they are red hot at stamping on public cons.

Judging by the costs they charge the organisers would probably go with the "It's for parking" argument.

Either way, I won't be going there again.

I don't have a problem with 50p, £3 however is a different matter.

hermum

I would definitely speak to your local council. I wouldn't be happy to pay £3 for car parking while I went round a boot sale. I'm surprised that they had any customers.

Just a quick thoughtlet. Did you go ultra early? I know some charge quite a high premium just before the official opening time or the first 30 minutes or so, as it's dealers who go then for the first pick of the day.

Icey77

Nope, I was there at 8.30. I believe it starts from 6am.

I've just reviewed the website www.carbootsales.org (actually very useful!) and found lots of other car boot sales around me. Most of them charge entry £1 or 50p before 8am, although there is one that charge £5 early entry fee before 9.30am :eek:

50p or even £1 is fine by me, I shall tootle over one of the others detailed next year as the outdoor car booting season appears to be coming to an end here abouts.

Thanks for listening to me rant!

vax2002

One round this way charged £3 for car parking, but they placed out police no parking cones anywhere you could park free.
Now knowing you need a temporary road traffic regulation to suspend parking I mentioned this to a rather awkward local PCSO we call "Double Dragon" Good point she says and has a closer look at the writing on the cone, they are not even from this force area she says, 2 police vans arrive and they confiscate the "recovered" police property, Idiot in charge of the event starts shouting up about his cones and gets nicked for handling stolen goods RESULT !