Melbourne Cup 2023: Crowds are down but Victorian Racing Club hopes to woo younger punters with a music festival and new dress code
Television numbers are also waning. Channel 10 reached record low viewers last year, a total of 1.35 million, compared to 1.7 million in 2021, according to OzTAM figures. The audience sat well above 3 million before 2015.
But Victoria Racing Club chief executive Steve Rosich said the 100,000-plus crowds did not provide racegoers with a great experience. This year, the predicted crowd of between 70,000 and 85,000 on a forecast 29-degree day would have more room to move and enjoy improved amenities in the opened-up 10,000-square-metre space, he said.
“There’s nothing like it in Australian sport and entertainment,” Mr Rosich told The Australian Financial Review.
“This year we will surpass our 244,000 attendees that came last year [over the carnival]. It’s not a record because we have set up the course differently now to make sure the amenities are available to everyone. There’s more space across the course.”
But the race is losing traction with younger crowds. An Essential Poll last year found 72 per cent of Australians still believed the Melbourne Cup is a “unique part of Australia’s national identity” but the number was down, and more than half of those polled had low or no interest in the race. Men were more likely to agree the Cup remained unique, but only 56 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 agreed.
The drop in office attendance since the pandemic also means that the office sweepstake, an introduction to the sport for many, has largely fallen by the wayside.
Betting figures are harder to gauge, but gamblers have moved to digital platforms and are betting on a range of sports far beyond horse racing. Sydney’s improved spring carnival is also challenging the Cup carnival.
“It’s not the race that stops the nation any more,” Demographics Group’s Simon Kuestenmacher said. “Horse racing is out of fashion with young people. They are drinking and betting less and increasingly see racing horses as unnecessary.
“Our society is also much more multicultural now. The population is still growing, so it will still be big, but it loses its cultural importance, which is a little sad. Sport is the last bastion to help provide social cohesion.”
Then there is the growing movement saying “Nup to the Cup” and holding alternative events.
Victorian Greens MP Katherine Copsey said: “We want to see the Melbourne Cup cancelled this year to protect punters from the dangerous harms of gambling and horses from unnecessary cruelty and pain.”
Mr Rosich said the VRC’s new festival, called Palooza and held in a giant pavilion out the back of the park and away from the racing, targeted 18- to 30-year-olds with DJs including Melanie C, better known as Sporty Spice.
Irish 1990s band The Corrs will rock out on Cup day, and other acts include British DJ Joel Corry, Jon Stevens, Rogue Traders, Timmy Trumpet, Hot Dub Time Machine, Mel Hall and Melbourne duo Client Liaison.
The VRC has also introduced a young member category for 18- to 25-year-olds which has shown “strong growth”, according to Mr Rosich.
And it has decreed that men and women will be allowed to wear tailored shorts in the members and the Birdcage. Top trainer Gai Waterhouse said she may be old-fashioned but she thought it was “ridiculous”.
The VRC also hopes Nine, which looks set to win the rights to broadcast the Melbourne Cup carnival from next year after Channel Seven pulled out of the bidding process, can bring more fun and star power to the TV coverage to win a broader audience. Nine owns The Australian Financial Review.
