Are there any other events you've found that when you simply want to go shoot, you can?
As poor as I am, I love free......
In 2006, a local RC flying field had a little air show. It turned out not to be so little. Many planes and many more people just spectating than I imagined it would be. Happened to just catch a tiny ad in the paper and figured my daughter might like it. Yes, she liked it and we spend probably 9 hours there. We returned last year and later this month is the 3rd annual show. All free admission with food and drinks available for purchase to benefit the club. If I get good shots, I plan to process them website sized and send the photos to the club as a thank you for putting on the show.
At the local dirt bike track, practice is every Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Weekend races cost an admission fee, but practices are free to go watch. Everything is a bit of a drive for me, so I'm waiting until my daughter is done with school for the summer and we'll go check out practice.
We've had many RC race tracks pop up year to year around me. They are always free to watch, practice or the races. Though they usually are pretty crowded and probably not "easy" to shoot at. More than likely, you would be stuck up in the stands rather than getting a better place to shoot from.
Along with the RC truck and buggy races, I've read on the local track forum that they have access to a pond. So, sounds like they may have some boat races as well.
Every year there is a Regatta weekend at Moraine State Park in western Pennsylvania. There of course are lots of boats out and about, Medevac is usually there with their chopper. There's a guy who has a helicopter every year that offers rides for $20. I may take a ride this year to check out shooting aerial photos. I've also seen a couple of guys every year running RC boats. I remember the RC boats even from way back when I was a child and we moved to this area. That was some 28 years ago.
A little farther away, there is the annual Three River's Regatta in Pittsburgh. I haven't been to it, but I can imagine there is a lot of stuff to shoot there.
There's always the smaller local airports. I don't know if you would be allowed to visit just for photography or not. Most of our local airports are so small that there isn't even a tower or anyone ever around. So, really, there's no one to tell you that you can't hang out with a camera.
Deck hockey. We have 1 deck hockey league local to me (local means under 40 miles for me). I'm not sure when they play, though I assume it is free admission to watch and easy to get a good position since there isn't all that many people watching.
Wings over Pittsburgh air show. Somehow I've missed the last 2 years since I've learned of it, but next year I'm going to try harder. Pittsburgh is a little less local for me, something like 80 miles. Again, another free admission event.
Of course, there's always the kids playing baseball. Any given evening or any given weekend, drive around and you are sure to see at least 2-3 townships playing baseball.
I plan on going to all of them through the summer. As I said, I've been to the RC field for their "show" since they started it, but only had a full automatic digicam and didn't know anything about photography or camera setup. Though I don't have a dSLR, I do have and shoot in full manual control of my little Fuji that I have now and I'll probably take the tripod as well. So, the only experience I have with a camera at an event is the 2 annual RC air shows with an auto digicam.
If I can find this many events, just the free ones at that, where I live way out in the sticks, I can't imagine how city folk can say that there's nothing to go see and shoot at. Starting on June 21st at the RC air show, I can get to 10 events, 1 per weeken, that will carry me through August just in time for my daughter to start back to school again. And that's with me living out in the middle of nowhere.
