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Folks , I have started going racing again for my sins …..and was shocked to see how few are turning up
At Newmarket last 3 day meeting it was almost empty for the entire 3 days
Leicester last Tues was one man and his dog
Sandown on Thurs was a real eye opener , high quality card , very very small crowd
Towcester last night was mobbed , almost 30 thousand turned up , and yes the admission was free , ………..is anyone getting a clue as to why nobody is bothering ….its simple , too expensive and not enough effort to get punters in the door
I can see more than Gt Leighs going under this yr unless something sensible happens
cheers
Ricky
Perth reported their best attendance at the April Festival for some years, and I understand the 5,100 on the Friday was the best last day attendance in the 20 years of the Festival.
Surprisingly though Perth’s first evening meeting had a crowd around the 2,000 mark which I’d say was disappointing, though the next day’s afternoon meeting did seem a good deal busier.
A mark of Perth’s success should show up in the crowd for tomorrow’s Gold Cup meeting. Glorious weather forecast and 12,000 expected. Much too busy for me, I’ll shall watch on the internet, but a real money-spinning day for the course.
Hamilton has seemed plenty busy enough for their meetings this year to date.
Cartmel’s Monday afternoon meeting drew the biggest crowd of its three-day meeting, given by officials to be just shy of 17,000. Not an all-time record there by any means, but still very impressive.
I’m not sure if it was quite 30,000 shoehorned into Towcester last night, but it would certainly have been well into five figures and probably the best-patronised evening meeting anywhere in the country this week.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
.. Towcester 30K crowd, admission free .. perhaps the folk that are trying to re-brand racing should do some sort of regression analysis to see if the two things are related, or if it’s just one of those spooky co-incidences.
Sandown on Thurs was a real eye opener , high quality card , very very small crowd
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What???? Even on the telly you could hear them screaming Conduit home.It was a very respectable crowd at Sandown on Thursday.
OK not packed to the Gunwalls but a good crowd nonetheless.
Southwell on Wednesday was quiet – especially by their standards for an NH meeting – then again it was up against the Champions League final.
Cartmel’s crowd last Saturday was also healthy.
I think Perth benefit from racing fewer days in the year…and generally in the summer months. So all the locals can plan there big work days out or jolly day out to the races on set dates. Not to mention those who travel from cities like Inverness, Aberdeen and Dundee, for whom Perth is there nearest track. On top of this there are usually good field sizes and decent racing. I am guessing Cartmel has a similar story.
There are X number of potential racegoers for any meeting anywhere in the uk (based on location/day of week/weather/cost etc per meeting). There are Y number of fixtures at each track. Simple equation = X / Y.
The higher the outcome the more crowd you’ll have per meeting at each track (if that makes sense).
Tracks like SOuthwell, Wolverhampton, Lingfield, Kempton etc race too many days a year to provide a decent average crowd per fixture.
And all this is before you even consider the price of a day at the races.
I know that the manager of one track which has about 22 fixtures would prefer 15 because he simply cannot get enough people to come to all of them. In practice he concentrates his marketing on days he is likely to get people through the turnstiles, but he still has to mess around and make efforts on the "excess" days. Those other days still pay their way normally, thanks to the payments for the TV pictures.
Having more and more race days makes them less and less of a special occasion. Goodwood have had about seven days racing already, whereas in the good old days it would have been two or three.
I think racings attendances bare up pretty well considering the amount of racing there is now.
I think people are always going to look at things that can be improved but generally I don’t think racing is in a bad state overall.
Interestingly the provisional average daily attendance in the first four months of 2009 is actually up 5.2% on the corresponding period in 2008.
So the figures do appear to be holding up reasonable well.
Having said that the figures did surprise me a little bit, as my perception at most of the meetings I have been to this year is the crowds have seemed smaller.
Good to see you at Sandown ricky…and Paul of course!
I still am suprised they dont hold the fixture on the old bank holiday monday and tues night.
Also there are more evening fixtures around london than before. Sandown will be packed for the concert im sure…. like it or not
and the coach party lot will be more inclined towards those meets
They had cars parked most of the way down the hill next to the track on Friday at Towcester. It’s difficult to know how many were there but it felt way way busier than Newmarket was for the guineas. Granted, Newmarket is a much bigger course but I was disappointed with the lack of atmosphere there on one of the biggest days of the year. £25 a ticket saw to that.
Does anyone have the attendance figures for Towcester since they started offering free admission? My guess is that the attendances are increasing.
Haydock was packed to the rafters on Saturday in Tatts for the boozers and day trippers, In the County it was busy but moveable which is fine and those who wanted to see the horses could do.
Southwell last Wednesday was the quietest I’ve known it for a jumps fixture.
As Neil says, Haydock Park on Saturday was absolutely buzzing – thousands of people turned out in the sunshine despite the "attraction" of the FA Cup final.
When there, I was told there exists a Premier ticket of £48 which made me laugh. Is this true?
Off to the sandpit this afternoon. The weather is like an outtake from top sitcom "Benidorm" this morning, so that should drag a few skivers and lampers out. 300 is my midpoint.
Interestingly the provisional average daily attendance in the first four months of 2009 is actually up 5.2% on the corresponding period in 2008.
So the figures do appear to be holding up reasonable well.
Having said that the figures did surprise me a little bit, as my perception at most of the meetings I have been to this year is the crowds have seemed smaller.
I saw that as well pom but I was thinking that in 2008 we lost the Wednesday of the Cheltenham Festival, probably about 50k attendance. When you add that in this year I reckon that accounts for all of the 5.2%
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