Coronavirus: The Entertainment Grounds misses out on “biggest" year
A star-studded concert and two major race meetings had The Entertainment Grounds well placed for its biggest year ever, before the pandemic struck.
Central Coast
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This year was meant to be the biggest The Entertainment Grounds has seen.
The Under the Southern Stars concert featuring international acts Live, Stone Temple Pilots and Bush, a Saturday Anzac Day race meeting and the inaugural running of The Coast race at the Gosford Gold Cup race day in May, were all meant to attract thousands to the Gosford racetrack.
Instead coronavirus restrictions have seen Under the Southern Stars rescheduled to February 28, while the Anzac Day and Gosford Gold Cup meetings have been lost to Gosford for the year.
“Being really selfish, it has been a real shame for us; these few months would have been our biggest, without a doubt," The Entertainment Grounds boss Daniel Lacey said.
These losses came on the back of the cancellation of their New Year’s Eve race meeting after two races due to extreme heatwave conditions on the day.
But Gosford race club’s decision to diversify and become The Entertainment Grounds in 2014 put them in a strong position heading into these unprecedented times.
Since 2014, the venue went from hosting 5-10 functions a year to 156 at its peak.
“Luckily for us, we’d been trading quite well up until then,” Mr Lacey said of the restrictions.
“So we’re OK at the moment.”
And the venue has had plenty of support from the community, with solid function bookings for later in the year.
“We're completely booked out for weekends in November,” Mr Lacey said.
“Hopefully by November time everyone's back on their feet.”
Both Gosford and Wyong racecourses have held race meetings behind closed doors since restrictions came into affect, with track staff, jockeys and trainers getting used to their new normal. Work on Wyong’s polytrack upgrade is also progressing well and is on target to be finished mid-May.
Wyong Race Club’s biggest race of the year is the Gold Cup in September and club general manager Robin Taylor said “we haven’t even started contemplating what things we’ll be like come September”.
