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I spotted an opportunity to take in an evening meeting at Sandown in July. The fact that the Scissor Sisters are on afterwards is of no interest to me.
However I notice it costs £33 to get in whereas a normal meet earlier in the month costs just £18.
The idea of putting music on is ok but not to charge for it. I wouldn’t cross the road to listen to this lot and now I am not going racing.
This can’t be right!!!!!Good grief £33? That costs more than "Whitbread" day and is totally extortionate. I would say vote with your feet and refuse to attend, but there is bound to be a sell-out crowd of Scissor Sister fans who know nothing about racing, but the executive at Sandown will call the event a huge success.
If you can bring your trip forward a month or so I can highly recommend the Brigadier Gerrard Stakes evening meeting at Sandown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigadier_Gerard_Stakes).
Last year the weather was brilliant, the card contained some excellent racing (good 2yo race, good stayers race and decent handicaps in addition to the gp3) and all for 15 quid.
What’s more the size of the crowd was perfect – I could watch the horses in the parade ring and still comfortably find a space on the grandstand to take in the race (definitely couldn’t at Chelters last week!)
algarvearry, I suggest a brief email to the racecourse explaining your point. I don’t mind bands playing post racing but to almost double the admission price seems a tad unfair.
Soon they’ll be marketing this type of evening as a concert as the main event with a bit of racing thrown in for free!
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The same’s true for their Tom Jones Night the following week. You can see how the tent obscures both the 5F course, and the main straight too [attachment=0:3fx8rmr8]Music-Night-Stage-Page.jpg[/attachment:3fx8rmr8]if you’re standing too low down or further away from the winning post. There’s a case they should be charging
less
, not
more
. Clearly genuine racegoers are not being encouraged here.
Welcome to the modern world of racing and racecourse economics. Don’t forget, the course has to pay Tom Jones to attend and I suspect he doesn’t come cheap.
They’ll reckon on a sell-out and they can recover their costs and make a profit by charging a minimum of £33 to attend. They will argue (with a degree of truth) that if you wanted to see Tom Jones at any other concert, you’d have to lash out more than £33 and for that you get an evening’s racing for nothing.
Let’s be accurate – this isn’t racing with music, it’s music with racing and almost all courses with evening meetings have gone down this route because the racing on its own doesn’t bring in enough people to make it economically viable.
If you can bring your trip forward a month or so I can highly recommend the Brigadier Gerrard Stakes evening meeting at Sandown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigadier_Gerard_Stakes).
Last year the weather was brilliant, the card contained some excellent racing (good 2yo race, good stayers race and decent handicaps in addition to the gp3) and all for 15 quid.
What’s more the size of the crowd was perfect – I could watch the horses in the parade ring and still comfortably find a space on the grandstand to take in the race (definitely couldn’t at Chelters last week!)
Thanks- that was the night I was hoping to catch, but I drive in from France just in time to miss the Sisters.
I’m not against music, I went to Yarmouth last August and saw a Madness tribute mob. That was a bonus to the racing.
Someone has got very confused in their thinking. Why not hold seperate events, cricket grounds do?Surely holding seperate events defeats the object. Even if only a fraction of the people that attend these nights return to the track for another meeting, thats surely still a good thing.
I know Newmarket have been tracking repeat business from people that have attended a "Newmarket Night" meeting, and whilst I can’t remember the figure they quoted, I know they were very happy with the amount of people that had returned to another meeting.A former work colleague of mine sent an e-mail one evening last year to Racing Uk about this, and we had a good discussion about it. He argued their should be too different admission charges, and whlist in principle it’s a good idea, it’s clearly impossible to police.
I do sympathise to a point, but with thousands of meetings a year to choose from, surely we shouldn’t be moaning too much about what are still only a fraction of the meetings charging extra for after racing events. I’ve not been to one yet, but I’m quite tempted by Blondie at Epsom
It looks like Tom Jones & Scissor Sisters are making this a tour. They’re both playing Haydock too.
£33 is a good deal if you like Tome Jones & racing or Tom Jones exclusively but it’s a bit of a kick in the shorts for genuine racegoers.
Still, could be worse. Kicking off Haydock’s concert series:
Rick Astley
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Let’s be accurate – this isn’t racing with music, it’s music with racing and almost all courses with evening meetings have gone down this route because the racing on its own doesn’t bring in enough people to make it economically viable.
You’re right. So why not make it music
without
the racing? They could put on some novelty charity races if they really wanted to give people a taste of the "real thing". The problem is that Sandown’s summer evening cards are often rather good, but will be (as the poet saith)
wasting their sweetness on the desert air
.
It may well be that racecourses are getting some more people through the turnstiles for other meetings – but they would say that, wouldn’t they? and I would like to see the figures to prove it before giving them the benefit of the doubt.
But are they keeping their Membership levels up? And how many genuine racegoers decide not to attend these expensive music shows? It’s another example of short-term and cynical thinking. And it’s no way to build an audience for Racing.
Newbury are following the concert without racing path, when Rod Stewart performs there the end of May.
I ended up at a few of the Epsom and Sandown concert meetings last year and I felt at the time the admission cost would deter those who just want to see the racing. Having said that at a couple of meetings the "standard" of racing, coupled with very small fields, meant even a tenner admission would be pushing it in terms of value.
There is also a potential danger in some cases. At the JLS Epsom concert the place was packed with screaming teenagers who seemed to spend the entire evening screaming to the extent a couple of horses were actually spooked.
From a selfish perspective when there is a "big name" concert after racing it makes getting away from the course after the last very much easier . . . . every cloud and all that.
I can see why the courses put on these concerts as they get crowds they would only otherwise dream of. I don’t think they really care if they gain any extra racegoers, although it would be a bonus. The big earner, even above the increased admission costs will be the increased booze and food sales.
In all the years I think I have only stayed on for one concert after racing, although with the strong hints Mrs O is dropping at the moment I suspect it will be two by the end of this summer.
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Newbury are following the concert without racing path, when Rod Stewart performs there the end of May.
Sensible thinking by Newbury – why pretend you’re interested in fostering racing, when all you really want to do is make money? At least they are not being hypocritical about it, or irritating true racegoers – so good luck to them.
Your point about screaming teenagers spooking the horses is well made too, Paul. Wasn’t it another poster who talked about hearing some of them saying,
"who wants to watch a load of boring brown horses running round a field?"
Separation is best.
Your point about screaming teenagers spooking the horses is well made too, Paul. Wasn’t it another poster who talked about hearing some of them saying,
"who wants to watch a load of boring brown horses running round a field?"
Separation is best.
Well I’m sure they could swing it for a couple of greys to be entered. Kids love a grey horse.
Courses could fairly easily resolve the pricing issue by giving any racegoer that leaves before the start of the concert a cash back voucher for use at a future meeting.
There’s usually a gap of 15 minutes after the last race before the music gets going, to ensure the horses are back in the stables, so there’s no practical reason why this couldn’t be done.
Plenty of financial reasons of course ……
AP
The concerts at Newmarket have been a massive success – funding the prizemoney for the quality racing that so few (comparably) racegoers go to watch on the Rowley Mile.
Of course it helps that they can tuck the stage between the grandstand out of the racing view.
I definitely know of people that have gone to concerts (never having been racing before) and have subsequently gone back for non-concert racing. I think the fact that they have "broken the ice" and actually enjoyed it and learned that racing "isn’t boring" or "aloof" has helped.
My daughter went with one of her friends to see X Factor last year at the races and has already got me to organise badges for James Blunt and The Wanted at Newmarket. She and her friends are the future of racing.
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The concerts at Newmarket have been a massive success – funding the prizemoney for the quality racing that so few (comparably) racegoers go to watch on the Rowley Mile.
Adrian, I’m sorry to disillusion you, but funding prize money is precisely what these events do
not
do. They fund the racecourse’s Profit & Loss account.
It’s just the same with sponsorship revenue, which is not normally part of prize money (the entry fees topped up to minimum levels from the Levy – that word "added" you see in the conditions for the race). Instead sponsorship takings get added to course receipts, to do with what they will (new toilets, bar refurbs, profits etc.) Sometimes the courses do add to the prize fund themselves, and for the very valuable races much of the sponsor’s money does go into the race pot; but normally it stays in the hands of the racecourse.
Gate money, like sponsorship, belongs exclusively to the courses. I think you will find that prize money for the races preceding these Music Nights is, almost without exception, notably low. And certainly the Music Nights do not subsidise the major racing events.
In the last few days both Matt Chapman & Graham Cunningham have said how great these music nights are and how they can’t understand old fuddy duddys continually complaining about them.
You can bet neither of these two ever pay entrance fee, as neither mention the vastly inflated charges for the “pleasure” of having the likes of Madness on after racing, accompanied by the increasingly mediocre fayre on the track. Haydock tonight a perfect example.
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