Hexham Racecourse

Events Category

Hexham’s 125th Anniversary Celebrations

@RCAShowcase Objectives

Celebrating 125 years of racing at Hexham Racecourse to achieve the following:

• To celebrate a prestigious anniversary – 125 years of racing at Hexham under National Hunt Rules.

• To raise the profile of ’s only surviving racecourse by capitalising upon its unique heritage and history.

• Reward racegoers, sponsors, owners and trainers for their loyalty by organising specific events and encourage them to share their favourite memories of racing at Hexham.

• To attract new and non racegoers to Hexham and to provide added value and excitement to each race meeting.

2 Delivery

Hexham Racecourse allocated an additional £5,000 to the annual marketing budget for the 125th anniversary. A full programme of celebration events were created and implemented in-house. Specific anniversary events and celebrations included:

• 125th Anniversary Raceday – Saturday 9th May 2015 - The celebration day achieved a new full day sponsor – Ramside Catering - Racecourse staff dressed in period costume and encouraged racegoers to join in for the Best Costume Competitions where there were great prizes to be won. Actor, presented all of the prizes, which added to the raceday crowd excitement and press coverage. - The Tote provided 3x £125 bets to be won by racegoers through competitions on social media and on the raceday.

• Creation of an Anniversary Logo for use in 2015 - Raised the profile of Hexham by appearing on all publicity material and on the course. - Enhanced the reliability image of Hexham Racecourse – Been here for 125 years.

• Branded 125th Anniversary Ale - Limited edition celebration memento provided to racegoers, sponsors, owners & trainers.

• Media Features - To promote the unique heritage and history of the racecourse. - As a result of pre-publicity for the anniversary, the celebrations were extensively filmed by ITV for the highly popular TV series, Tales of Northumberland, presented by actor, Robson Green. Each episode attracts approx. 3.5 million viewers. - Social media campaign to encourage racegoers to share their favourite memories of racing at Hexham over the years. These were used on the website and in the racecards. 3 Results/Anticipated Results

For an investment of £5,000, significant publicity for the anniversary, the racecourse in general and the regions tourist industry was achieved through the following: • Extensive coverage in national, local and regional media estimated an editorial, pictorial and TV coverage to the value of £250,000 (conservative estimate). Examples shown below of the double page editorial featured in the Nostalgia Series of the Evening Chronicle, published at no cost to the racecourse and the TV coverage with actor Robson Green. • To date there has been a 10.3% increase in attendance as a result of the publicity for the anniversary celebrations and the added value customers received. Example: “For our first visit to Hexham, I took my mum to the 125th Anniversary Raceday for the celebration package and we really enjoyed our day out. We will return to a meet next year where we could go along and enjoy a similar package. Thank you” Carol Brooke • The anniversary has attracted new and additional sponsorship of races during 2015 to the value of £12,000. • The limited edition branded ale was well received by all concerned with many people taking the bottle home as a memento of their day and Hexham’s special celebration.

4 Supporting Information

Hexham Racecourse would like to include the following information to support the submission: • Hexham Racecourse history page on the website: http://www.Hexham- racecourse.co.uk/history.htm

• Racegoer memories on the website: http://www.hexham-racecourse.co.uk/125- celebrations-racing-memories-2.htm

• Social media campaign to encourage racegoers to share their favourite memories of racing at Hexham over the years. Example below…

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