Admission to the gardens, which were open until 9 pm during the summer, was by subscription ticket priced at 10 shillings for a family and 5 shillings for an individual, beyond the means of most workers. Concerts of "genteel music" were staged, and there was dancing to various bands on a large open-air wooden platform. Initially, the only public transport to Belle Vue was by horse-drawn omnibus from what is now Piccadilly, in central Manchester, but the last departure time of 6:00 pm coincided with the end of most workers' shifts. The first railway station was opened near Belle Vue in 1842, allowing workers easier access to the gardens and their attractions, and by 1848 complaints began to appear in the press that "roughs" in coarse attire were embarrassing middle-class ladies on the dancing platform by attempting to dance with them. There were also complaints about working-class men dancing together, and increasing resentment from working-class patrons about Belle Vue's "forbidding dress requirements, its restricted opening hours, its unwelcoming admission price". In the words of historian David Mayer, Jennison was facing a crisis: "either keep Belle Vue Gardens an exclusive, class-specific, genteel preserve for the gentry and the middle class – who would arrive and depart in their own carriages through the Hyde Road gate – or open the gardens to a popular crowd who would arrive by train at the Stockport Road (Longsight) gate". For a time, Jennison sent carriages to the railway station to collect the first-class passengers, but he also abandoned the idea of subscription tickets, settling instead on a general admission price of 4d, rising to 6d in 1851.