Programming

[Messenger]

Day meetings are no doubt a tricky one for attracting attendances. Night meetings should be much easier and I would like to see Harness racing make at least one night its own before the gallops under lights take all the nights too.
When I say night meetings should be easier I am not discounting the negative influence of winter weather but I am assuming we provide warm dining experiences for those who want them.
Factors I would take into consideration for mid-week meetings with a view to increasing attendances would be

Having regular days for particular tracks eg Stawell is the first Monday of the month, Ballarat is the 2nd and 4th Thursday etc etc

Decide on whether Friday or Saturday night is going to be our main Metro night. If it is Saturday then I would look at whether you could make the Friday afternoon meeting a big businessmen late lunch day - where is the problem? This idea probably does not have legs as we have no suitable venue (Don't get me started on the Melton decision)

Putting a good meeting on Wednesdays as that is the main midweek gallops day and has spin off potential - maybe alternate between a couple of good clubs, choosing the one furthest from the gallops in the hope of attracting a few punters onto our course to bet on both codes. I think Melton could be one of the venues and maybe Cranbourne could be the other (although I have no idea of what there facilities are like nowadays) as they offer alternative sides of Melbourne in populated areas

If there is more than one Trot race on the program, the 2nd (and 3rd?) one should be at the start of the program as it gives attendees a chance to tailor their arrival as I think we really do have 3 types of harness fans - T, P or T&P and I think turnover is a little less on Trots races so let's keep the end of the program free for pacing races

I think the practice of putting Restricted $3k meetings on the days where we have 2 meetings is a good one but sometimes wonder whether adding a little cream by way of one interesting race eg C4+ could have benefits

Although we are only talking a few weeks of the year, I would be selecting venues carefully during school holiday times and marketing them strongly - we may just find our future fans at these meets

I will come back to you on other ideas but the sun is shining right now and I must get hiking.
EVERYBODY please give Cody your ideas too

[codywinnell]

Cheers Kevin, love your feedback, enthusiasm and ideas. It's all food for thought!

As I'm the comms man these aren't my areas, but always happy to provide response from areas within HRV for those who have questions on any matter via this forum - be it programming, racing, form and wagering etc etc.... And also happy to pass on different ideas garnered from the web/social media/email/talking to people at the track for discussion and consideration @ HRV too.

[codywinnell]

PS - enjoy the sun, Kevin! Cracking day out there.

[Amlin]

I know the harness racing calendar is programmed after the gallops one to co-ordinate multi use venues (Kilmore/Cranbourne) etc and it would be very difficult in this era given the sheer volume of racing each week, but one query I have is to whether there is any check done re other codes racing in the immediate area on the same day.


As an example, recently we had Moe races, Cranbourne trots, Warragul dogs, Sale dogs and Sandown dogs all on a Sunday. Only one other Victorian meeting was held outside the South East/Gippsland region, that being Ballarat races.


Appreciate it is difficult to get the balance right and that on-course attendances would be a struggle in Winter but this example is hardly ideal especially on a weekend.