Cheltenham tries to woo back racegoers with ticket prices and drinking areas

Cheltenham racecourse has announced a wide-ranging package of measures, including changes to the racing programme, upgrades to parking facilities and moves to address sky-high prices for accommodation locally. It is attempting to coax racegoers back to its showpiece Festival meeting in March after sharp drops in attendance over the past two years.

The most significant changes to the 28-race schedule means three events – the Grade One Turners Novice Chase, the Cross-Country Chase and the National Hunt Chase – switch to a handicap format, while the latter contest, traditionally one of three at the Festival restricted to amateur riders, will be opened up to professional jockeys.

Moves to improve the race-day experience for racegoers include an extension of the amount of hard-standing “trackway” in the grassed car parks, new Park & Ride schemes from several locations around the course and an extension of the areas with a view of the action where drinking is permitted.

Ticket prices will be frozen at the 2024 level, with the number of tickets required to qualify for a group discount dropping from 15 to six. Racegoers buying a ticket for any day will be able to buy an additional badge for one of the first three days of the meeting at a 20% discount. The track is also introducing a “one-stop shop”, which allows racegoers to buy tickets, hotel rooms and travel to the course as a package in response to spiralling prices for accommodation in recent years.

“Throughout the course of this review process there have been three distinct strands which have been impossible to ignore,” Ian Renton, the managing director of Cheltenham, said on Thursday. “Value for money, the need to provide the best experience possible and the competitiveness of the race programme.

“We understand that when people are paying to attend premium events they expect a premium experience and that has been at the front of our minds when committing to significant investment to improve our car parks, launching a park and ride system and offering more course-facing areas to enjoy a drink while watching the racing.”

Attendance at the 2022 Festival, the first with full crowds after the Covid-19 pandemic, was a record 280,627, but dropped to 240,603 in 2023 and then to 229,999 in 2024, a decline of 18% in two years.

Cheltenham decided to cap the daily attendance at the Festival at 68,500 – equating to a maximum of 274,000 over the four days – from 2023 after complaints about the customer experience in the record crowds a year earlier. The cost of living crisis is also likely to have contributed to at least some of the decline in numbers, but after losing such a large chunk of its audience in two years, the track has clearly decided that urgent action is required.

There is less confidence, though, about how long it will take to turn things around. Track executives suggested the attendance in 2025 could well drop from 2024 and they do not expect an upturn in the numbers until at least 2026.

There is no longer a typical Festival racegoer with plenty going to Cheltenham as part of a must-see annual event. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

Perhaps the ultimate problem Cheltenham faces as it refines its “premium” product is that there is no longer a typical Festival racegoer. In the days when it was a three-day meeting for jump racing’s most ardent devotees, it was also possible book two or three nights in a hotel within easy reach of the course without needing a second mortgage. There was no slack in the programme, the drama was unrelenting and a Welsh hill farmer could send a horse to the Gold Cup and beat the defending champion.

Over the past three or four decades, the county-set aficionados have been joined by a new breed of Festival racegoers, adding the meeting to their list of high-end, must-see annual events. Their money is just as good as that of the diehards and, in the case of the packed hospitality chalets, arguably better from the track’s point of view.

Several of the changes announced make perfect sense. There is nothing premium about waiting for hours for a tractor to haul your car out of the car park but a 33% increase in the number of handicaps and the decision to allow spectators to drink on the grandstand steppings may not go down well with fans who just want to watch top-class racing. Cheltenham is engaged in a tricky balancing act and it could go either way.