Context: The Golden Slipper is one of Australia’s premier race carnivals. The Sydney Turf Club contracted Micromex Research to assist in attaining a better understanding of visitors to the Carnival.

Objectives: The primary objectives of this research were:

• Identifying attendance/non attendance characteristics
• Identifying the key drivers for visitor attendance
• Better understanding the value that visitors derived from attending
• Analysing the STC’s/events’ branding
• Identifying the perceived target market for the event and the visitors’ perceptions of their fit within this profile
• Identifying the gaps between the visitors’ ‘current race day experiences’ and ‘ideal race day experiences’
• Improving the targeting of marketing communications to increase visitation
• Identifying additions to the event that would make visitation more valuable
• Developing a demographic snapshot of attendees and identifying demographic trends that may impact on visitation

Challenge: Interviewing visitors as they exit a racecourse is not an ideal methodology in which to get quality information. Visitors were therefore recruited as they entered the racecourse and conducted an online survey 3 days after their trip to the races.

Methodologies: In depth face to face interviews, online research and focus groups were utilised for this study.

Examples of other research Micromex has conducted for the Sydney Turf Club:

• Member and non member research
• Visitor tracking studies
• Competitive analysis