Refunds , Or Lack Of Refunds On Cancelled Shoot Days

[marsh man]

Glancing in this weeks Shooting Times in Tesco's today while my wife was doing the shopping I read the article on some party of guns losing eye watering money on some days cancelled do to the bird flu and lack of bird on some of the top shoots in the uk , they didn't pull any punches in nameing the worst ones and also praising the good one , I might be wrong as I only had a quick look but I think they were refering to last year and they were not offered another day this season , as the shoot didn't have to pay the overheads for the day lost you would have thought the party of guns would had been offered something , and by all acounts you are talking about a lot of money , many 1000s in fact .

So maybe someone can link the true facts and what are your thoughts about refunding  cancelled days .     MM

[Smokersmith]

Many of the folks who are spending ‘000’s on shoot days will have them insured.

Makes sense to me unless you can afford to lose it!

[ditchman]

never ever paid full ammount upfront..........just asking for trouble....used to pay 1/3rd in cash up front...and final ammount on the day including overages...

[enfieldspares]

No different to paying for five days at a Test Match. Play is not guaranteed. The guns should have, and could have, taken insurance. Gambled and lost.

[jall25]

Lost the odd day here and there over the years - or had reduced bags 

The shoots we were with always gave "extra" birds the next year or another day 

[London Best]

Will be shooting next Saturday on a 150 bird day for the price of a 100 day at last years price. This is the estates compensation for a day last season which did not live up to expectations, ours or theirs. The day should have been 130 and we shot 80. That would not have mattered if we were shooting badly, but that was not the case. The birds simply were not there. The keeper refused a tip and suggested we spoke to the boss. We paid in full and then had a word and his offer was most acceptable.

[snow white]

I lost two today’s back in 20/21 season due to lack off birds shoot was cancelled all together last season 21/22 owner phoned telling me reason and offered me a full refund or if I left it I could have extra day this year for free I spoke to him last week asking what days he had for me with out mentioning the day he promised gave me two days then said I owe one day gave that date I said thank you very much now can I have four more days as you hadn’t forgotten that one I don’t think I would have taken the four days if he hadn’t remembered that he owed me one.

[marsh man]

I think on to the small or medium shoots they rely on the same teams coming each season and to fill the surplus dates then it is often down to word of mouth , we only had to cancel one day last season and the team of local farmers are having it this year , as you would expect at no extra charge even though the cost of everything had gone up .

On the large shoots where they seem to be paying mega bucks would it make a lot of difference to the overall costs if the insurance for a cancelled day due to weather conditions or the bird flu put paid to holding the day was included in the cost for the day's shooting ? , this would only be a very small amount of money in comparrison what the days shooting cost , and then there would be no hard feelings if things went wrong at the last minute   MM

[grahamch]

Saw the letter, folk spending that much have more money than sense and its big expensive days that will be the ruin of the sport if its not done so already. 

[marsh man]

6 hours ago, grahamch said:

Saw the letter, folk spending that much have more money than sense and its big expensive days that will be the ruin of the sport if its not done so already. 

The thing is , that is a lot of money to the like of people like ourselves , but to some who have got it is peanuts and they don't blink a eyelid as long as they get a days sport , it is sometimes harder to book a day on the top shoots rather than the smaller 100 / 150 bird days , not that I am ever likely to try and book a day at the top shoots, or the smaller ones nowadays 

[Scully]

On 25/09/2023 at 13:51, grahamch said:

…..its big expensive days that will be the ruin of the sport if its not done so already. 

Why? 

[London Best]

1 hour ago, Scully said:

Why? 

Quite the reverse I would think.

[Scully]

On 27/09/2023 at 08:55, London Best said:

Quite the reverse I would think.

It’s just typical really. There are many folk who make such comments but can’t back them up when challenged.
I can only assume it’s envy. 🤷‍♂️

[Fargo]

On 28/09/2023 at 16:35, Scully said:

It’s just typical really. There are many folk who make such comments but can’t back them up when challenged.
I can only assume it’s envy. 🤷‍♂️

All envy, always is.

The people who buy whole days for their friends and colleagues for £25k -35k have loads money .. they ain’t the ones earning 40k a year , maybe a week . Good on them I say 

[Scully]

8 hours ago, Fargo said:

All envy, always is.

The people who buy whole days for their friends and colleagues for £25k -35k have loads money .. they ain’t the ones earning 40k a year , maybe a week . Good on them I say 

I agree. A good example of reverse snobbery. 

[Penelope]

15 hours ago, Scully said:

I agree. A good example of reverse snobbery. 

There's a lot of that.

Good luck to those that can afford it, they keep a lot of people in work.

[Scully]

13 minutes ago, Penelope said:

There's a lot of that.

Good luck to those that can afford it, they keep a lot of people in work.

They do indeed. 👍

[JohnfromUK]

When I ran a shoot we had various options;

• The team of guns could insure the day (through us at cost) with an insurer (we used a Lloyds suyndicate).  From memory, it cost around 10 -15% and we simply passed the cost on - no 'markup'.  Some did, some didn't take this option.
• If a day was cancelled (by us), we would try to arrange a similar day to suit the team later in the season.
• If a team of guns cancelled - we would offer the day to others and refund the original team what we could get back (which was usually less).
• Ultimately, if a day was cancelled at very short notice, we would have to 'negotiate' what the purchaser chose from the above, or give a partial refund less reasonable costs which came out of the deposit (i.e. things we had booked such as caterers that we couldn't cancel).

In around 10 years of running the shoot, we only cancelled completely on two occasions I can remember, once due to snow - and once due to fog.  In both cases, the guns team took a later replacement date.

In very wet weather I can recall 'shooting through' and finishing early occasionally, and usually we were able to make up any shortfall on a later day (most teams came on more than one day).