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MELBOURNE: The Victoria Racing Club's chief executive, Dale Monteith, says pre-selling of tickets for the first time was a winner for the club despite the first three days of the Melbourne Cup carnival all being down on numbers.
"It's something new and probably a bold decision to make the change from what we've done in the past, to just roll up at the gates and purchase an admission ticket," Monteith said.
"We're entirely happy with the final result. There is no doubt the EI [equine influenza] outbreak had an impact in reducing our attendance from what was a record high last year.
"But numbers aren't everything. It's the experience of the event. We think last year there were days that were less than desirable."
Monteith said around 72,000 tickets had already been sold for today's Emirates Stakes day meeting, the final day of carnival, and that was the number needed to achieve the second-highest attendance over the four days.
Last year's Emirates Stakes crowd was a record 78,158 and Monteith said the club was expecting a crowd of between 75,000 and 80,000 today.
The day has an increased profile with two group one races now on the programme.
The Derby day crowd was 115,705 (record 129,089), Cup day 102,411 (record 106,691) and Oaks day 95,230 (record 104,131).
Monteith said around 600 people on Cup day and about 20 on Derby day turned up at the gate without a ticket, but most were from overseas and were not aware of the pre-sale strategy. "But we managed to accommodate them."
He said the club would concentrate even more on getting the pre-sale message out for next year's carnival.
Victoria police reported 49 police-related incidents over the first three days, which was a 45 per cent drop on last year.
- AAP
