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No your not Paul!
U got it worng at sandown last week as well…
so did i
I did say usually
Anyway I still maintain they got that Sandown one wrong and it should have been a dead heat!!!
I spotted GC at Southwell based on a vague inkling
Aye. Hard to go wrong with an inkling predicated on the lines of "hairy, black-clad buffoon brandishing open sweeties".
GC, my brother went to Cartmel on Bank Holiday Monday and had a cracking time – best trip to the races he’s ever had. I’ve already diaried it in for next year.
Another convert! Glad he had a top time that day – I certainly did. Maybe see the both of you up there 12 months hence?
Nottingham suffers from low attendances and always has done. They’ve tried everything but nothing seems to work except for the Kilverton meeting and the Saturday nights in July. Yet, the October meetings full of maidens are fantastic backend experiences – Colwick Park seldom looks better – and I try never to miss them.
A trip to Colwick Park will happen at some point – it’s just a case of when. Would be nice to do a few more
Flatastrophe
s for the Features pages here this summer, if circumstances permit. I’m all Worcester, Umberleigh and Ffos Las in the next fortnight, though!
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.
I tripped along to Bath on Sunday and, admittedly I’ve only been nine or ten times, it was the busiest I’ve ever seen it. It was a family fun day and the weather was gorgeous, there was folk everywhere. Turned up 45 minutes before the first race, went to park in the centre of the course ( credit crunch bit) and had to park quite a way from the centre and walk down from there…
By the way, where do you find the attendance figures from?
That’s a good question, Yeovilmac. I’d like to know that myself.
Southwell was jammed to the rafters today – one of the biggest attendances I’ve seen since the transplanted Skybet Chase of 2007 – and it was full of young(er) people, families and women.
The heavens opened this morning and stayed open which shows that racing isn’t necessarily a fair weather attraction,
There is a database of all attendances going back 20 odd years. I had the link but lost it now… Its hidden away in the BHA website i think…
You can search by course/dates and so on. Works very nicely
I’ve already had a tinker with this and I’m in shock already.
220 bookmakers at York for the 1989 Ebor? That’s nearly a Monday Wolverhampton attendance. Pontefract’s infamous May Friday meeting down from nearly 12,000 to just over 8,000 in two years? Are there myths associated with Towcester’s free attendance policy? No matter what Goodwood’s seemingly insane Executive charge to enter, they apparently still flock to the Downs.
Cheers Clive. A tops resource!
Are there myths associated with Towcester’s free attendance policy?
The figures since free entry are indispuatably higher than they were pre-rebuild. Although not earth sahheringly higher.
No matter what Goodwood’s seemingly insane Executive charge to enter, they apparently still flock to the Downs.
Which perhaps illustrates the argument of market forces – if you have a generally good quality product and, as with Goodwood, a beautiful setting, people will pay to go in.
It is the same with Chester – they charge even more than Goodwood yet are nearly always sold out.
Who can blame the courses who, after all are businesses not charities and if they can get a good attendance – frequently full houses – charging what they do, then how can you expect them to be asked to reduce their prices. It would not make commercial sense.
A danger with exploiting the market to its limits is that whilst you may continue to attract customers, the occasion becomes dominated by wealthy day trippers with genuine fans alienated
In truth, this has happened at many meetings already. Royal Ascot prime exmple
And it takes the edge of an occasion when it is obvious the audience doesnt have much of a clue/interest in whats going on. Which in turn tones drags down the atmosphere.
Lords cricket is agood example of this. The audience there has become steadily more city/yahoo in recent times. I always seem to be seated in front of someone droning on about their career or oneupmanship holiday destinations rather than the finer points of the game
I can see where you are coming from Clive and to an extent I agree with you.
However looking at it from the racecourses perspective (and you will probably need to put your "working" head on for this one) they surely need to maximise their revenue stream.
As long as they are getting bodies through the gates and staging racing then it is objective achieved from their perspective.
I am not suggesting it is "right" from the racing fans perspective but as long as racecourses are businesses I cannot see any change.
Now if we were going to be radical and move to something like a Tote monopoly with all profits going into racing then yes it could be possible to subsidise admission costs.
People will quote the Towcester business model – but how successful is it? If it is that good why have other courses not adopted it?
It is a policy that may work for smaller courses but for the larger courses, with bigger overheads it just would not be a feasible model.
PS Please don’t change your user name again a xxx Clive does not bear thinking about!!!!
People will quote the Towcester business model – but how successful is it? If it is that good why have other courses not adopted it?
Contrariwise, if it’s that bad why has it remained intact for five seasons now?
Maybe it’s simply the best fit for the sort of course Towcester is; and as you say, it probably wouldn’t stand application to some other courses, E.g. given how much of Cartmel’s continued existence relies on five-figure tallies of spectactors paying not-the-cheapest admission prices, the application of the Towcester admission model there would be injudicious.
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.
Clive , thanks for the link , its been a real eye opener for me , and to be honest racing attendance seems to be holding up pretty well
It will be interesting some to see how things pan out when the aw season arrives , I would imagine there will be more folk attending monmore green than at leafy !!!
cheers
Ricky
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