Just been told the crowd was poor

lets ask the question is the vaal or any of our other racecourses fully equipped to handle 15 to 20 000 people ?have any of the tracks been refurbished to do so?

Good guess, Chicken - they say that many who had bought tickets never turned up. That still doesnt explain the very small crowd at the general area. Stretched to its absolute limits, Vaal can only seat about 2000 people. Only half the size picnic area was erected.

Mr. H - you are spot on. I live in the area and NOTHING was up to promote the event in the Vaal Triangle.

Pirates - you round it off. All we have to do is to have a look at the facilities and finishes at Casinos and we will know that we are miles behind, a stark, archaic reminder of a dying industry. Whilst we have sold and closed racecourses, the only "new" thing which we offer is Polytrack.......yeah, right, people who dont know racing will flock to see this wonderful new racing surface.....

Your traditional corner cafe has taken a beating, since the advent of the modern take away shops at 24 hour filling stations. Add to this, a Spar on every doorstep and you will have no doubt that the corner cafe is all but gone, as a profitable business.

Racing is the corner cafe. Its time to refurbish, as Pirates says. Again, look at the Casinos. When you walk into any Casino, you have a host of options for the whole family. Even dining has a host of options. Walk onto a racecourse with the whole family....

Come Summer Cup day, we will still have a lot of very old trailers on the ground floor at Turffontein, selling boerie rolls, burgers etc. What you WONT find, is a Food Hall and what you WONT find, is a variety of well known, top class restaurants. You will find the Carvery, the same one at all the venues......and you will be charged an arm and a leg....because its a big race day !

Unfortunately LG is correct

Just to relate my experience, I also thought of reserving a picnic site on the day - after a few phone calls I was sent a receipt - I then queried the number of sites they were planning and also which one would be ours - to try and find out where the site would be in relation to the winning post - got no reply, but was then phoned during last week when they wanted to know when I was going to pay - I told them that I was no longer interested.

So poor customer service reigns

As for the crowd, I can't really comment, as I have not attended the last few years, but I thought the track could accommodate a few more, but as it was it was not too busy and one could wander around easily enough - so for me it was a blessing in disguise that it was a 'kak' crowd.

Needless to say (and in contrast to Elvis and my wife) my punting was pretty disastrous on the day - also Master disappointed us (no bloody early pace despite JP's best efforts to 'get him into the race') - but we live to fight another day

all correct gents - frustrating. Thank you for the frank feedback - although we don't have direct control of delivery, I am taking note.

Oh dear. They are going to learn the hard way I'm afraid. Durbanville Heritage Day had the same experience - priced at R120 per braai pack, own foods and drinks prohibited, groups of families turned away at the gates. Counter productive .

Three things:
1. service delivery
2. affordability
3. communication

any feedback on the DJ's music etc? yes I agree I think none of the tracks' operationals are equipped to deal with effective crowd control, security, Health+Safety on larger numbers...not yet anyway.

It can work but lessons learnt need to be applied.

quick question - if attendance was down 50% this year on last year - how did they get 10 000 there last year and was their experience so rubbish that half of them didn't return this year? or are there other factors at play - i.e. cost of participating (cost of braai packs/picnics), travel or a big rugby game on at the same time?
help here please.

I seen a tweet from Caulfield races saying their last meeting had an 100% increase in attendence from 3000 to over 6000,from the corresponding meeting last season

now why is that? what can they ascribe the increase to?

I think the most significant scenario is Frodo's experience.........because he is, like most of us, a "long time victim" and had a runner, he made other arrangements after the shocking service.............but had that been a newbie trying a new experience , the cancellation would have been final and probably put down to experience, with no intention to try again!!!
The marketing of racing is ,quite honestly, beyond belief!.............except that it is carried out by people who started out in life doing something else!

rob faux wrote: I think the most significant scenario is Frodo's experience.........because he is, like most of us, a "long time victim" and had a runner, he made other arrangements after the shocking service.............but had that been a newbie trying a new experience , the cancellation would have been final and probably put down to experience, with no intention to try again!!!
The marketing of racing is ,quite honestly, beyond belief!.............except that it is carried out by people who started out in life doing something else!

I can't even find any info on "picnic sites" on Facebook or the No Rush site - Not even pictures of last Year's event on the Facebook(Or crowd shots, or a testimonial or two from 2013 attendees) YET they deem it important to show some ANCIENT pics of the OK Grand Challenge from ZIM(Not even the OK Gold Bowl!!) on September 25 - So poor - How can this be Marketing? Insane!

the industry bosses cry that the game needs young blood, NEW PLAYERS, and they are right, the bosses spend PLENTY trying to attract youngsters into racing with all sorts of ideas, young achievers days, bands, DJs, picnics and so on, all they do is waste racing's money because very few youngsters ever come back after a days joll paid for with punters money, they dont UNDERSTAND the game,, perhaps next year the bosses will bring the circus to the course, and hopefully some of them will leave with the circus,... 90% the youngsters they want to attract into the game are internet savvy, yet for the last 10 years they ignore and refuse to spend a cent on helping with the development of the internet program Formgrids which amongst other things is a complete database of the sport, we proposed a tellytrack program called Inform with Formgrids which would have helped to EDUCATE the existing and a younger crowd, we were prepared to travel to the studio in Rivonia twice a week at our own cost and expected no payment for our efforts yet the big big bosses refused us claiming we must pay for the production of the show to tellytrack ourselves, if they had supported and worked with the Formgrids team for all these years meaningful things could have been achieved

I thought I posted last night? Must have forgot to submit

I remember I suggested we had a computer room at the track to attract yuppies to trade using an exchange but due to the fact the exchange was never made legal and we all have smart phones not such a good idea now

Plus if we consider we don't have water or a postal service maybe getting people to the track not a priority to the masses

and just who watches Tellytrack??. Thank goodness you didn't spend the money...