The outdoor event season is one relished by hundreds of thousands of people across the county – but does every gig or summer extravagana have to also be accompanied by traffic jams getting in and out of a venue?

This weekend saw tempers boil over at the BHP Performance Show at the Kent County Showground in Detling.

As thousands flocked to see the vintage and high-performance vehicles on show on Bank Holiday Monday, many found themselves studying the interior of their own vehicles for two-and-a-half hours instead.

Queues stretched back onto the M20 causing inevitable knock-on effects for many others.

“We sat in the traffic for two-and-a-half hours then gave up,” said one disgruntled visitor on social media. “What a joke, poor organisation. Won’t be doing that again!”

But for those who did shell out the £20 it not only spoiled a planned day out, but also makes others think twice about going to big events; and that spells trouble for an outdoor events sector which relies on that all-important ‘feel-good’ factor driving sales for future shows.

The car show is, of course, far from alone in finding its post-event headlines dominated by traffic grumbles.

Just ask anyone who has attended a big music event at Paddock Wood’s Hop Farm or Leeds Castle – it can take hours to get off the site.

But is it an inevitability?

The logistics would suggest ‘yes’. If you have an event with thousands of visitors descending on one venue, by car, at roughly the same time – and then all seeking to leave – there is little option than delays.

While the organisers of Monday’s car show were keeping their opinions to themselves, they were also set to meet with bosses at the Kent County Showground for a debrief. It seems unlikely to be all smiles.

Nikki Dorkings is general manager of the Kent County Showground. She says: “Inevitably if you're coming to a very big show, there's going to be traffic. People do need to expect there will be traffic on these roads.”

However, she and her team are clearly less than pleased at how the BHP Performance Show team organised the event after hiring the site from them.

She explained: “There are two sides of our business - there's the charitable side which involves the Kent County Show plus other events that we hold.

“Then the other side is the Kent Event Centre. People can hire the grounds from us but there are various clauses in their contracts in terms of traffic control and contractors. .

“They [the car show organisers] would have brought in their own teams. We made recommendations to them but whether they took that advice we'll discuss with them in the debrief.

“We're obviously very disappointed with how Monday turned out but hopefully we'll move forward from it because obviously it will have a knock on effect to our own events.”

In particular, there’s the Kent County Show fast approaching on the horizon.

Traditionally one of the county’s most popular events, this year it marks its centenary over July 7-9.

Its staggered departure – and arrival times – tends to make for a relatively free-flowing event. Only torrential rain in 2012 forced it, for the first time in its history, to close its car parks and turn people away as the fields were turned into quagmires.

This year has the added complication, however, of the on-going roadworks at the Stockbury roundabout – a key junction of the M2 leading down to the site itself.

But organisers of the county show insist after navigating the works last year, it is “very confident” of there being no problems for this year’s show.

Added Nikki Dorkings: “We are in communications with National Highways, so they know the event is taking place. We also have the same contractors working with us as last year who we were very happy with and there were no problems or delays getting into the showground.

“We're very confident. It shouldn't cause any problems.

“We're putting notices out early on the visual displays so people are aware the event is happening, we had Highways personnel actually in our control office over the weekend and they were exceptionally happy with the way things were handled.”

Preparation – and that all important communication – is key agree others in the industry.

In 2021, for example, gig-goers who had enjoyed the likes of Tom Jones and Olly Murs at the Hop Farm were left waiting hours to exit the car park, while in 2018, there were waits of three hours when Little Mix played to a crowd of 30,000 at Detling.

Inevitably, if you're coming to a very big show, there's going to be traffic.

Stephen Wyatt ran the now defunct Kent Events, handling traffic management at big events for more than 20 years.

He says delays for big one-off events where everyone rushes to the exit can rarely be avoided.

He explained: “The biggest issue in the 20-odd years I was doing traffic management is that it doesn't always feature highly on the organiser's radar. They tend to concentrate on what's inside the venue rather than outside. They can lose sight of the fact if you can't get your people in and out they're not going to come back.

“In the main, the issue is these shows take place where there is little to no public transport. So you're heavily reliant on cars.

"Are three hour queues to be expected? In some cases probably yes.

"There is always going to be a queue. If you look at these venues with 14-15,000 people, and they've all come by car, because there's no other means of getting there, you've got 7-8,000 cars trying to get out at the same time. It doesn't matter how many gates they've got, they're all going onto the road in the same direction.”

To demonstrate how a nearby mainline train station can benefit a venue look no further than Margate’s Dreamland.

It is almost next-door to Margate railway station and can ferry people out of the town after attending concerts at the venue relatively painlessly. But then it’s not regularly hosting crowds of 15,000-plus.

Added Mr Wyatt: “It's all about people management in car parks. People want to see activity.

"If the public is not informed, that free-for-all attitude we so often see occurs. If the organisers, at the outset, say to people there may be a delay getting in or out, please bear with us, and the stewards and the marshals talk to the public, you tend to reduce those issues dramatically.

"In general, it's educating the motorist."

With a host of big events taking place in the county over the summer months, it is possible lessons learned will make life a little easier. History would suggest, however, not to bank on it.