Royal Welsh Show crowds surprise

Organisers today spoke of their shock after attendance figures for the third day of Wales' premier agricultural show exceeded expectations. By 3pm yesterday, 65,139 people had passed through the turnstiles at the Royal Welsh Show.

Event officials said they had expected attendance to be a lot lower because of the wet weather.

Haydn Jones, publicity officer for the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, said the third day of the event at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, had seen bumper visitor numbers.

Despite the figure falling 2,885 short of last year's attendance, Mr Jones said it was still one of the highest numbers seen on a Wednesday for more than 38 years.

He said: "We were expecting the figures to be a lot less than this because of the very poor wet weather we had yesterday. So when we were told that it was above 65,000 we were very shocked, it was brilliant news.

"Even though the figure is a lot lower than last year it is still one of the best we have seen on a Wednesday for many years. It's very pleasing to note the rain didn't stop people from attending."

He said he hoped weather conditions would improve today.

"We ended up having to cancel a few of the main ring events yesterday because of the downpours and I'm hoping the same won't happen again." he said.

The event has so far this year attracted 172,083 showgoers and to make it a record they will need to get more than 68,057 to walk through the gates today. The 2006 record stands at 240,140.