Autumn Racing Carnival offers a glimpse of the future

Veteran event planner Amy Merriman is helping the Australian Turf Club push boundaries.

Amy Merriman of Event Planet at Royal Randwick. “In 2019, people don’t want the same-old,” she says. Jessica Hromas

Dan F StapletonWriter

Apr 17, 2019 – 12.11am

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The three-tonne African elephant gazed out at the crowd of 500 assembled for a black-tie fundraiser in the ballroom of Sydney's Four Seasons Hotel. He was supposed to exit stage right but something on one of the VIP tables had caught his attention. He lumbered forward.

“I was standing there peeking between my fingers,” says Amy Merriman, whose company Event Planet organised the evening of behalf of the Humpty Dumpty Foundation. “If it went wrong, it was going to go really wrong. I think it was the longest three minutes of my life.”