Inside Australia’s obsession with the Melbourne Cup
THE lead-up to the Melbourne Cup Carnival sees Australians buy 61,000 dresses, 59,000 pairs of shoes and at Flemington alone, down 529,000 drinks. How did it become the biggest day of the year?
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WHEN the last champagne flute is drained on the final day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, socialites begin cosying up to PR maven Judy Romano for an invitation to next year’s. “The desperation is quite embarrassing,” she says. “For Sydney and Melbourne people, if you are not invited to the Cup, you are nobody.”
Romano has seen wannabes try to bluff their way into exclusive marquees, disguise themselves as celebrities, or press $500 into her palm. No matter how ingenious the ruse, her answer is: “No.”
From Randwick to Rottnest, the Melbourne Cup is perhaps the biggest day on Australia’s social calendar. For Very Important and Less Important people alike, it’s an annual excuse to frock up and drink champagne on a Tuesday afternoon, whether it’s trackside or in front of the TV at the pub.
In the lead-up to the Melbourne Cup Carnival, which includes Derby Day and Oaks Day, Australians buy 75,000 hats and fascinators, 61,000 dresses, 59,000 pairs of shoes and 30,000 handbags.
At Flemington alone, punters eat 15,000 oysters, 75,000 party pies and down 529,000 drinks. There’s $53.8 million bet on the carnival through the TAB alone, and at 3pm on the day of the Melbourne Cup there are 2.4 million spectators watching the race on television.
But if you’re anybody in this country, the only place to be that day is in The Birdcage at Flemington.
The Birdcage began as a members’ car park. On race day it was full of Bentleys, Mercedes and Ranger Rovers, and members would have champagne-soaked picnics out of their car boots.
In the late 1980s, Louis Vuitton set up a tent. “It was probably the first in the glamorous new age of entertaining,” says publicist Deeta Colvin, who looked after the brand’s publicity and events at the time. “We had beautiful furniture brought in, we decorated it with fresh flowers. The guest list included the prime minister and a leading list of Sydney and Melbourne identities.”
The idea caught on and more companies set up marquees. Romano, from PR and event agency Romano Beck, who nicknames herself “the old boiler of The Birdcage”, ran a tent for Saab. “One of my fondest memories was when it got dark, we used to park the Saabs in front of the marquee, turn on the headlights, pump up the radios and party until 1am.”
The Birdcage has come a long way from those makeshift tents. Now companies hosting a marquee spend small fortunes on lavishly decorated structures that are several storeys high, fully plumbed and wired, and can house hundreds of VIPs. The competition over food, decor and guest lists is fierce. “You could build a house for the prices of most of the marquees out there,” says Romano.
The marquees are a significant, if expensive, exercise in public relations and corporate hospitality. For department store Myer, the carnival generates valuable publicity from mainstream and social-media coverage of the celebrities inside.
“Last year, more than $150 million in media came out of our focus on spring racing; we had more than a dozen front-page stories,” says Myer deputy chief executive Daniel Bracken.
“That’s an obvious reason why we do it, but the second reason is to drive sales. Myer is synonymous with the Spring Racing Carnival, and that six- to eight-week build-up is like Christmas for some of our categories.” Myer sells hundreds of thousands of dresses and dress shirts in the lead-up to spring racing, says Bracken. The week before the carnival begins, it sells 150 women’s hats an hour.
International brands benefit, too. Airline Emirates, champagne house G.H. Mumm and car maker Lexus all invest big dollars in their marquees. It’s a branding exercise, but they can also get global publicity, particularly if there are international celebrities around. In 2003, its first year at the carnival, Lexus set up opposite Seven Network, which flew in Nicky and Paris Hilton at great expense. The Hiltons brought with them a stampede of international media.
“The photographers couldn’t get a good pic of them [in the Seven Network tent], so every time they got a photo, it was in front of the Lexus marquee,” recalls Lexus PR man Grant Vandenberg.
Guest lists are carefully curated and strictly enforced. One cannot buy entry into The Birdcage. “We start thinking about guest lists about three months before,” says Melissa Templeton, public relations manager at Myer.
Only a certain type of celebrity will be considered, says Romano. “We would never invite a celebrity who’s rude and won’t smile for the camera. The guests want to be able to say they met [model] Gigi Hadid, for example, and we want those celebrities to be gracious.”
For those lusting after an invitation, the stress doesn’t stop when the ticket arrives; the pressure to dress the part is intense for both men and women. It may well determine whether they are lucky enough to be invited back next year.
“There’s an almost theatrical element to the races, but at the same time, there are very strict rules about what to wear,” says Myer ambassador and actor Jodi Anasta, who judges fashions on the field. But fashion doesn’t have to be expensive; this year Ann Peacock, who presides over Crown’s trackside marquee, will be wearing a $120 dress.
For Jennifer Hawkins, the face of Myer, the spring carnival has already begun. Her dress and hat fittings kicked off in September.
“It’s a big deal for me; I get butterflies,” she says. “You walk into The Birdcage and there are cameras and flashes.”
For those women lucky enough to get a golden ticket, the tiny thing that can make or break Cup day is their shoes.
“I am not really sure how heel-fit I am at the moment,” says Hawkins. “I’m just like everyone else. You grit down and think, ‘Please be great heels,’ then you just want to throw them out at the end of the day.”
Originally published as Inside Australia’s obsession with the Melbourne Cup
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