Shocking atmosphere at this competition, I think the 3 people surrounding me, as well as a couple of scattered people throughout the crowd were the only ones shouting encouragement.... The commentator did nothing about this, merely giving facts about peoples favourite climbing areas, food and animals. Plus the music was terrible, acoustic ballads played etc. It didn't help that the people at the front were made to sit down, getting a bad view in the process, despite waiting there for over an hour to get the best view.... When has this happened before? When would this happen at any other sporting event? I know some of the competitors were a bit annoyed with the cringe worthy atmosphere. With regards to the setting, I think the route setters did remarkably well given the wall and time they had to work with - at least they managed to separate the groups. I think the BMC has to seriously think about what went wrong in that final.... The qualification worked well, although group B should have been in isolation. Rant over, sorry.

We attended on Sunday with 4 of our junior squad and everything ran well and smoothly. The wall was fine and the routes worked well to split the finalist, with the crowd and commentary creating a good atmosphere for the climbers. The only worrying aspect was the time it took to get medical assistance to the lad who hurt his arm/wrist. Overall it seemed a job well done by everyone on Sunday - though I cannot comment on Saturday at all.

That's a shame, but hardly suprising given the 'none event' that is the Outdoors Show thesedays. It was brilliant in 2006 when they had the World Cup at the NEC and Mark Croxall won. But the Outdoors Show has shrunk massively since then.

You must have been sitting next to us, at the right hand end then. The atmosphere was a bit quiet a lot of the time, but there were plenty of people cheering them on now and then - not sure you can blame the organisers for the crowd not being vocal though? As for having to sit down at the front - why the heck not? I could see fine - once all the people at the rail blocking everyone elses view had sat down. And we didn't have to wait for an hour either. It would have been better if there were tiered seating, but until people are willing to pay a lot of money to go to these events and spectate that just aint going to happen, is it? When you say "what went wrong in the final" are you referring to the commentator implying that a competitor had toppped out, arguably causing them to stop, when they hadn't? Or do you mean the lack of vocal support, poor music and making people sit down so others could see? Si