Darwin Cup Day a success despite coronavirus restrictions, says turf club
THE Darwin Turf Club is still calculating total sales from Monday’s Darwin Cup, but the early verdict is it was an event worth holding despite COVID-19 measures
Northern Territory
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THE Darwin Turf Club is still calculating total sales from Monday’s Darwin Cup, but the early verdict is it was an event worth holding despite the safety measures required to combat coronavirus.
“We don’t know if it was a profitable day or not – that’s yet to be determined, and it will only be towards the end of the week that we’ll get a clearer picture of profitability. But from our first look at the numbers, it appears that it was a good day, in terms of sales,” Darwin Turf Club chief executive Brad Morgan told the NT News.
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Mr Morgan said to ensure good “patron comfort levels” the club had stopped selling tickets before reaching the capped number of 7500, so the number of people at the event had been closer to 5600.
“When you do a comparison, 17,000 (people) versus 5000, there’s significantly less people on site, which translates to significantly less gate revenue. But we didn’t have the centrefield marquees either, so there was less infrastructure cost as well,” he said.
To mitigate against coronavirus the club capped crowd numbers, bolstered hygiene measures and placed tables and chairs at set distances apart, and Mr Morgan said the club was overall pleased with how racegoers had adhered to safety measures.
“We implemented as stringent measures as we possibly could,” he said.
“The later the day became, it became more difficult. Unfortunately there were some cases of people dragging tables and chairs together, but most of those were groups who knew each other. And all our tickets were pre-sold so we didn’t have anyone coming to the venue that we couldn’t track and trace or track down.”
Speaking before the event, an NT Health spokesman said several environmental officers would attend on Cup Day to ensure the event’s COVID Safety Plan was followed.
“As a major event they have to submit a COVID Safety Plan detailing how they will manage issues like density, ingress and egress,” he said.
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Mr Morgan said the event had been worth holding.
“The board took the view that the event was something that the Darwin community needed. So while it was mostly attended by locals, hopefully our restaurants and bars and taxi drivers and fashion houses and all those associated businesses derived some sort of benefit out of the Darwin Cup Carnival this year,” he said.
“It was probably not quite to the same degree as in previous years, but I think a lot of businesses around Darwin would have benefited from the Cup Carnival this year, in difficult times.”
Originally published as Darwin Cup Day a success despite coronavirus restrictions, says turf club