THE advance reports that attendances figures will be down at Irish meetings hardly comes as a surprise with the country emerging from a Covid aftermath and growing pressures on various sectors of the economy.

The situation in Britain looked even more worrying this week, consumers have less leisure spend and seek more value for money.

While the 11,300 attendance figure at the Curragh may be satisfactory, it is a massive drop in 10 years from around 22,000 at the old Curragh, leaky grandstand and all. And there was no local GAA to pull people away last week.

As we pass mid-summer, attention will focus on Killarney, Galway and Listowel and there is still optimism that the public will give continued support the big festival meetings.

Reports from Britain this week revealed the average attendances have fallen below 3,000 in May, the first since BHA figures began in 1995.

But, alongside that, the tracks that have offered concessions have seen decent attendances which should be considered to the front and centre of any efforts to boost attendences.

Notes can be taken from France where they are offering La Garden Party, a well-known DJ and music at ParisLongchamp on July 14th for the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris with entry of just €12.

Photos from a pretty empty Leopardstown on early summer evenings and a €25 entry fee aren’t the best incentives to pull more people in, with so many other activities attempting to engage in the summer spend.

And the value for money element must be embraced. We can’t afford to lose those who are still making the effort. The following was a comment made to us from the Curragh on Saturday and if you had paid €50, you would expect better. It’s harsh but not untrue and it came from someone who was there for the racing.

All we wanted was something light, could literally only get a coffee in the small granite building beside the saddling area, sandwiches or lots of champagne! No outside benches or sitting to have a coffee, had to go into the steerage floor of Titanic (Tote betting hall), got dried up fish and chips for €13.50 and nowhere to sit to eat them. There were a couple of old plastic tables for how many people, 10,000 expected?

Because of nowhere to sit outside or inside, drinkers carrying four pints in trays in the stands when races on - madness. Queues for toilets, inside place like being in a packed bookies with drinking. Never again.

Another racegoer while stating that he did enjoy his day said:

Definitely the queues were too slow for tea, coffee or for some food. The people with time and money to spend are probably the older racegoers and more likely to go all year round if it is easy to do the basics (simple wraps and sambos in the Hall).

There were some complaints on the restaurant service too, while appreciating that this area of getting trained table staff is a problem at a wider level.

But if management at the larger tracks are addressing attendance figures, they need to take on board areas that can, without too much expense, be improved for those already continuing their support.