Cost of living crisis blamed for alarming drop in Cheltenham crowd figures - but what is driving the downturn?

It is too early to draw definitive conclusions from the steep drop in attendance figures over the first three days of the Cheltenham Festival, according to Racecourse Association chief executive David Armstrong, although he believes the continued strain of the cost of living crisis and transport disruption have both played their part in the downturn. 

Jockey Club Racecourses elected to lower the capacity for the meeting to 68,500 each day in order to ease congestion and improve customer experience, but both Tuesday and Wednesday's crowd numbers fell well below that, while Thursday's 62,429 – the biggest gate of the week before Friday's sold-out Boodles Gold Cup card – marked a 15 per cent drop on last year and was more than 6,000 under capacity. 

Wednesday has been the quietest day for a number of years and only 50,387 people were on hand to witness Energumene record back-to-back successes in the Champion Chase, a 21 per cent fall compared to his first triumph in the race 12 months ago.

2023 Cheltenham crowd figures

2022 number in brackets

Tuesday: 60,284 (68,567)
Wednesday: 50,387 (64,431)
Thursday: 62,429 (73,754)

Only 50,387 witnessed Energumene's Champion Chase triumph on WednesdayCredit: Patrick McCann

"I think the industrial action has had an effect through the week and it’s hard to quantify the difference that makes," said Armstrong. "Certainly making it that bit harder to get here doesn’t help. It’s a little bit early to tell overall. There’s a lot of noise in the numbers because of the strike action. Thursday was quite a good crowd and today [Friday] is sold out."

Armstrong added: "It will be interesting to unpick that and understand which people were here, how the different types of crowd differ and where they’re coming from between this year and last. That will be part of the work the Jockey Club do after the event."

Racecourse attendances fell 14 per cent in 2022 compared to 2019, the last year before the Covid pandemic struck, although Cheltenham's figures remained strong.

Advanced sales for this year's meeting were reported to be healthy, with the sold-out signs for the slightly reduced capacity on Gold Cup day going up at the end of January for the first time.  

Armstrong said of the figures for the first three days at Cheltenham: "I’m not particularly worried about it. I think Aintree is selling well but we’re going to continue to see the effects of the cost of living crisis. This time last year we’d only just had the invasion of Ukraine and it hadn’t yet come through and started to affect people in their pocket. Now you’ve got the full effect of cost of living crisis, fuel costs, all the things we know all about that are affecting disposable income."

Anecdotal reports are that the Jockey Club's stated aim of making the experience more comfortable for racegoers has been aided by the fall in numbers, especially in the main public areas.

David Armstrong: "Cheltenham is a bellwether to some extent"

"What you see is that the numbers in the lower cost enclosures are the ones that are under threat, whereas hospitality is absolutely packed out, with every space gone," he said: "What you’re probably seeing is those people with pressure on their disposable income are just finding it that little bit harder. People might now only go one or two days, they will change their patterns of behaviour if they’re under personal financial pressure. 

"We’ve had some encouraging signs earlier on in the year with other meetings that have gone well. It is right that Cheltenham is a bellwether to some extent as to what we might see later on."

Analysis: what factors could be driving the fall in festival crowds? 

The cost of a day at Cheltenham

The Jockey Club may or may not have known which way the economic winds were about to blow when putting tickets on sale straight after a successful 2022 festival. The price of a Club enclosure ticket at that early stage for any of the first three days was pitched at £83, which was actually £2 less than for the 2022 meeting. But everything that goes around a day at the races – including the infamous £7.50 for a pint of Guinness – has gone up. 

Organisers will point to favourable comparisons with similar big ticket events such as Six Nations rugby or an Ashes Test match. But cost was constantly mentioned as one of the attractive features among first-time visitors to the more boutique-scale Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown

Has the town priced itself out of consideration?

Covid-19 was undoubtedly a near-extinction threat to many in the hospitality trade and nobody will blame owners of businesses that barely survived for trying to regain lost ground. But accommodation anywhere within a taxi drive of Cheltenham has soared over the two years since the pandemic. 

Tales of customers being asked to pay hundreds for a night in a run-of-the-mill chain hotel and mandatory Friday night stays will not have helped that image, and plenty of bars in town had nearly as many security staff as punters. For some people who used to come for two or more days, an overnight stay is now out of the question.

Willie Mullins is all smiles after El Fabiolo dominates the ArkleCredit: Patrick McCann

Is Irish domination a turn-off? 

Willie Mullins notching ten wins at the 2022 Cheltenham Festival was a supreme effort, but there will be some British fans of the sport who might wonder if there is as much fun to be had when the horses they watch week in, week out, end up being comprehensively beaten when the Irish arrive.

Even among those who pay little heed to where a horse is trained, the presence of so many short-priced favourites weeks out from the festival might have given some pause for reflection.  

Strike strife

Cheltenham boss Ian Renton said on Thursday he believed the disruption to travel plans caused by the ongoing rail strikes had been a brake on attendance, sentiments echoed by the RCA's David Armstrong. 

It’s the economy, stupid

They say even a week is a long time in politics and the headline inflation rate in Britain rose from 6.2 per cent in the month before the 2022 festival to a high of 11.1 per cent last October, while it was still 10.1 per cent last month.

That steady erosion of people’s spending power is almost bound to have been a factor – especially when combined with the specific costs associated with attending the festival – while the steep rise in both household heating bill and mortgage interest rates have put hundreds (if not thousands) of pounds on people’s outgoings.

October 2022 was also the peak month of inflation in Ireland, which has generally tracked around two per cent lower than in the UK but is still much higher than in recent memory.

Read these next:

'The strikes have definitely had an impact' - Cheltenham boss reacts to big drop in crowds 

'He went unbacked but we'll still enjoy it' - JP McManus delight as festival regular Sire Du Berlais strikes 

Martin Pipe's greatest Cheltenham punts - and the one that topped them all in a Haydock seller 

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