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Dear Colin,
I’m not sure how to answer this other than to say engaging with our stakeholders is excellent practice for us as a business and that it is a very worthwhile use of our time.
Many thanks
Thanks Glenn,
Definitely keep an eye out for our Ask the BHA opportunities soon next week- you will be able to air your questions there and get an expert to answer, I’m afraid I am but the website editor!
Many thanks
Robin
Dear happy,
If you could point out any remaining glitches or errors please do!
It is a brand new site and as has to be expected things happen on launch (remember the racingpost.com launch) but we are working hard to iron these out and I think most of it is working fine.
Many thanks
Robin
Dear wit,
No- all tickets for Great Leighs have been withdrawn from sale until further notice!
Many thanks
Dear apracing,
Many thanks for the spot. We have now addressed this and the offer is now correct and live.
A slight teething issue, no site ever launched without one! Now corrected though and many thanks indeed for the feedback.
Dear apracing,
Thanks for pointing this out to us. This is now fixed and the offer is live.
A minor technical teething issue, no new site launches without them!
Thanks indeed for the spot though.
Dear Cavelino Rampante,
Many thanks indeed for your feedback, and just to let you know I am in complete agreement.
We are currently working on a project to make sure tickets can be picked up on the day, and thus purchased more last minute.
As you will appreciate though this is a very tough and laborious job- there are 60 racecourses and we need to clarify booking processes, training of staff etc with each of them. Such is the nature of racing!
However we sincerely hope to have addresses this as soon as we can, and appreciate that it is one issue we need to address.
Kind regards,
Robin
Dear Equitrack,
There was no duplication or wastage of money involved at all- the new site gototheraces.com is simply an expansion of gojumpracing.com with extra features and inclusive of all race meetings. Absolutely no duplication was involved, it is the same site but just expanded.
Gojumpracing.com has now
become
gototheraces.com, if you see what I mean.
I do understand your comments about geographical issues, and we are doing our best to address this.
You will see that we have placed offers for Ayr, Carlisle, Newcastle and Doncaster up on the site, and have had previous offers for Musselburgh, including the free tickets one.
I would suggest that the choice to use the site or not is totally up to you. If you can get your tickets cheaper on the door then I would advise to do that, but then again if another great ticket offer for Musselburgh, like the free tickets one or something along those lines, pops up then it would seem a shame not to use it!
The choice is totally yours.
Dear robnorth,
Many thanks for your comments, they are duly taken into account.
I would respond by saying that we are not claiming to give every single racegoer discounts to every single race meeting every day of the year. It may be that for some of the meetings you wish to attend that we cannot provide you with cheaper tickets than buying the ticket on the door.
However at the same time we will save a lot of people a lot of money, and this does include the lone racegoer. For example, the lone racegoer at Newmarket, Ascot etc will save 10% off their tickets through us.
In addition we will be adding more promotions throughout the year to keep your eyes open for. I would like to point out that in the Jumps season we did an exclusive FREE TICKETS promotion for a race meeting at Musselburgh, as well as some fantastic 50% off all tickets at Ascot offers. We are negotiating special offers all the time and it is well worth checking our site.
Maybe for the meetings you have described we cannot save you money, but at the same time maybe on another day we will.
However, your feedback is much appreciated, and I wish you all the best in finding the best possible value.
Regards.
This has now been amended. Many thanks for pointing this out underscore, much appreciated.
You can now also view some fantastic 2008 Cheltenham Festival memories on our new homepage.
If the intiative is to provide discounts, substantial or otherwise, to racegoers, Robin, then where is the logic in making it more expensive for individuals? Why should group bookings be the only beneficiaries of this self-proclaimed wonder scheme?
I haven’t spent more than thirty seconds on the website, as I would rather see my money go straight to the course and wouldn’t admit to being fond of its design, but am I right to assume that the adminstration fee is applied to all bookings? If this is indeed the case, is that pure profit for the BHA or does it go to the course for which tickets have been booked?
I don’t mind paying to go racing as long as the cost is justified by the course’s facilties and the quality of action on offer. Perhaps more effort should be made to fine tune and standardise ticket pricing, as well as limiting how much any one course can charge for food and drink. Obviously racecourses, like all sporting venues, operate as businesses and charge what they feel they can get away with, but is there any point in saving £2 when you pay double that for a pint? I used to work for a company who supplied bar staff to racecourses and I was sometimes embarassed to tell people how much their bill had come to.
Just out of interest, how are you able to offer the discounts you claim? How do the involved racecourses view the intiative, given that their pre-raceday turnover is presumably affected (until such time as the advertised increase in demand makes up for the shortfall in sales revenue, of course)?
Dear Equitrack,
Thanks for your reasonable questions. Just to let you know all proceeds through the gojumpracing site go straight to the racecourses (including booking fee), it is completely non profit for the BHA with the end result being designed to promote racing and get more people going.
If we can achieve this then it can only be good for the sport. All of the discounts on the site are agreed with the racecourses themselves as a joint initiative to promote racing at their courses. They are completely behind the initiative and are already starting to see some benefits.
I appreciate everyone’s right to have an opinion on this site- that is what forums are for, and that is why we posted here to get the message out to you guys and ultimately you decide if you want to use it.
A quick question back for you guys- are any of you planning to attend-
– The Long Walk Hurdle day? (50% off on gojumpracing.com)
– Victor Chandler Chase? (50% off on gojumpracing.com)
– Meetings at Kempton next year? (£8 off on gojumpracing.com)
– John Smiths Cheltenham trials at Musselburgh? (free on gojumpracing.com)If yes, will you rather pay full price on the door or receive the above savings? Its totally your choice of course, but for all its faults do you see that there could be benefits in this for you, and in the long run if more people are going racing, that that could be good for the sport?
Please also bear in mind that the site has ONLY JUST launched and these are just the first promotions we have put up. Maybe none of these courses are good for you, someone on one board said there are no Northern courses amongst these and the point was taken and we are working on this, but this is just the beginning.
Please just bear this in mind- the next time you’re planning a big day out at the racing and you get there and find everyone else has saved 50% off their tickets through the site it might just have been worth using!
All the best anyway
Rob "BHA Man/Woman/Thing"Absolutely not true. Offering users 50% off tickets for the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot is not having a laugh. Neither is 50% off Victor Chandler Chase day, FREE racing at Musselburgh, Cheaper entry/free drink/Free bet at Peterboro chase day at Huntingdon, £8 off racing at Kempton all 2009…..
Neither are the excellent reviews/ratings we are achieving in the press.
Or the increases in ticket sales we have had since the site started.
I’m sorry we couldnt save you more money from your meeting at Plumpton, but the hundreds of people who have already taken advantage of the order of Merit offer at Ascot proves that we are not "having a laugh".
Its amazing to think that because one user could only save a couple of quid from one meeting you are willing to slate the entire initiative, meanwhile hundreds of other users are using the site and saving money.
Its up to you if you want to use the site or not, but all the people who are saving money on their racing are not "having a laugh". Well, actually they probably are and good on them. I just hope for your sake we dont do a promotion at plumpton like we are doing at musselburgh where there is free entry if booked in advance through us, and you missed it….
Point taken, but in fairness this is only if you are going racing on your own- buy 2 tickets for the same meeting from our site and you save £4 and pay only £2.50 fee so it is cheaper on our site.
It isnt a howler it is still cheaper to buy the tickets through the site unless you happen to be going to this meeting on your own, in which case agreed it is 50p more expensive so yes better to buy on the door.
Our figures show very very strongly that most people do not buy single tickets for meetings who book in advance. You can still save money from our site though if you are such a user e.g. the £8 off all Kempton tickets next year- you can’t get that on any other site.
Again though thanks again for all feedback, much appreciated.
Robin
Hi everyone,
Thanks loads for your interest and feedback so far, it is very much appreciated.
I just thought I would try to respond to some of the points you have raised.
Re: Touts getting hold of tickets.
Fortunately we are able to track the names/addresses/tickets bought and a whole host of information for every single purchase, and as such are aware of this issue and keeping tabs on it- we have systems in place to deal with it. As YET it hasnt reared its ugly head, but please be aware we are monitoring this every day.Re: Free pint offered
You have raised a very valid point here. I am going to have to look into this and clarify exactly what drinks are offered- I’m sure that it isnt only a pint and that wine and soft drinks will be catered for. I will look this and amend accordingly, but this is a very good point and appreciated.Re: Will there be a goflatracing.com
Absolutely. If the initiative proves to be a success we have a decision to make whether to turn the site into a complete ticket site for both codes of racing, or whether to run a parallel flat website. Either way, if the initiative works we will definitely do flat racing too.Re: Redesigning BHA website
Trust me, I am on to this! I am well aware that the site is outdated. Unfortunately I have only been in this role a matter of short months but already have the wheels in motion for this. The first thing I have done is to redesign the Go Racing area of the site (http://www.britishhorseracing.com) into a logical and more user friendly order. I would like you all to know though that we have a design agency working on adding a new homepage and making the entire site much more modern and add some great features, these will be with us early next year. In the longer run we’re running a complete overhaul and redesign of the entire site. So yes, don’t worry we are on to this! These things take time though.Many thanks again for all your feedback, it is much appreciated.
Yours
Robin
