Cheltenham MD - Edward Gillespie

Cheltenham Racecourse MD Edward Gillespie talks to Event Industry News about weather delays, his trust in contractors and why individual acts of idiocy won’t affect that famous atmosphere.

Managing Director of Cheltenham Racecourse Edward Gillespie has revealed that the first six weeks of this year’s festival build were some of the most difficult he can remember.

With preparations scheduled to get under way in the first week of January, the harsh winter hampered the early part of the project.

Speaking to Event Industry News (EIN), Edward said “The preparations, as always for an event in mid-March are fraught with challenges.  A lot of the structures were delayed by a week at the beginning because of the depth of the snow and the ground conditions.  We had a really challenging start back in January, but as good a last 3 weeks as you could have wished for.  The contractors did a great job across the pitch. “

One of those contractors was Event Power Services (EPS), who for ten years have been coordinating and distributing electrical power supplies for the festival. Working closely with generator contractor Power Electrics, EPS distribute supplies to all parts of the track. This includes the entertainment and hospitality areas as well as providing the necessary requirements for the BBC’s outside broadcasts.

Following events at Newbury racecourse that led to the death of two racehorses, their work also included making additional health and safety recommendations to the course management.

Contracts Manager Steve Rosser told Event Industry News that Cheltenham was one of the highlights of their year and a prestigious mark on their client portfolio. Steve told us “The relationship we have with the other contractors is excellent.  Having done the event for so long, we understand their scheduling and how they work.  This helps us to provide the required supply without the need to be in constant contact, making everyone’s operation more efficient.”

The Cheltenham Roar

The Cheltenham Festival is the premier event on the national hunt calendar, attracting global interest and an average daily attendance of 50,000 spectators.

Known for its friendly and welcoming atmosphere, Cheltenham prides itself on being accessible to a broad spectrum of visitors, from trackside punters through to high-end corporate guests.

For an event that sees 200,000 pints of Guinness consumed over a four-day period, preparation needs to be meticulous, especially as this was the festival’s centenary year.  Edward has worked in racetrack senior management for 31 years, which include helping to organise five Epsom Derbys.

Planning for the Cheltenham Festival starts in September and from a management point of view, he co-ordinates a small in house team, with no external management brought in to assist the running.  He told EIN, “The relationship with the contractors runs on trust.  We’re in constant contact with them, we never have a formal meeting, we just meet on site when the preparations begin.”

The event also has some of the longest contractor relationships in the business.  2011 saw marquee and canvas supplier Attwoolls celebrate their 50^th year with the festival, whilst Arena Structures have now been involved for the last 27 years. Building on a close relationship with Cheltenham Festival organisers through the provision of multi-storey structures, Arena were entrusted to supply a range of temporary structures for the 100th anniversary. All three structures (a double deck Horizon structure, a four story Arena Scene structure and a glass fronted double-deck hospitality suite) were located along the home straight, providing uninterrupted views over the course.

However, despite some excellent long-term relationships with the contractors, Edward pointed out that the suppliers are still required to win these deals every few years, with him and his team directly responsible for sourcing and agreeing most of these contracts.

Contracts not sourced directly by the team at Cheltenham are done via a centrally purchased Jockey Club Racecourses process, created to save money using economies of scale to their advantage.

Highlighting this, Edward said “The toilet supplier, for example, is now done on a group basis so we get the best value by working with our brothers and sisters at Epsom, at Aintree, at Newmarket and our other tracks”, the supplier in this instance being John Anderson.

Managing the Crowds

Famous for its party atmosphere, Cheltenham pays close attention to its security set-up in order to aid this, working efficiently with its security provider, G4S and Recruit, to provide a safe, secure environment that still allows spectators to be right on top of the action. Helping to coordinate the security operation was Mobile CCTV Ltd, contracted by the festival to provide additional closed-circuit monitoring.  Managing Director Don Wetherell and his team installed 15 hard wired and four digital wireless cameras, linking them to the on site CCTV system so that all areas of the course were covered.

Having worked for Special Event Security some years ago, Don has experience of doing the physical side of things at Cheltenham and says this helped him when starting up his own company and advising on the initial CCTV requirements and in supporting the security teams.

“What I witnessed was a very disjointed structure which did work but albeit not very well, with a series of “control rooms” dotted all over the racecourse. ”, said Don “The Police, Medics, Ambulance and security contractors all had their own thing going on and there was a lack of coordination”.

“I was asked to be a part of assembling a multi-agency control room. In March 2000 Cheltenham had their first fully integrated control and it worked very well and we have never looked back” said Don.

Don also highlighted that many event organisers still see CCTV as an unnecessary expense, often using the argument that they never have any crime problems, so why do they need it?

However, Don explains that having a CCTV system for an event is more than just monitoring pickpockets.

Speaking of their experiences he said “By operating in the way that we do, we can help to deliver a better customer experience at events like Cheltenham.  If one ingress point becomes congested we can advise for staff to be relocated.  Should medical aid be required in a busy spectator area our birds-eye view means we can direct an ambulance via the safest route.  Having worked at Cheltenham for 12 years, we understand that crowd dynamics play an important part of the festival, so we do our best to make sure that the crowds are as safe as possible”.

Don also explained that he is very proud to be a part of such a well organised and dynamic event. We are one team all working towards one aim and that is to produce a fun, safe event with some world class horse racing. Well done Cheltenham and cheers to the next 100 years.

Track Invasion

This year saw a well-documented incident involving a Ryanair protester who invaded the track to protest against the budget airline.  When asked if security had to be adapted in light of this breach, Edward gave a decisive answer.  “Events like this are built on trust, the trust between the organiser and the spectators. You cannot gear or change the whole organisation around a non-sporting product or an occasional individual.  If we did it (security) any other way, the whole thing would feel totally different.”

Although the main focus for visitors is the horse racing, crowd management and dispersal is the prime consideration when organising the additional entertainment.  To aid this, bars are kept open until 6:50pm and live music is always laid on.  This year’s main act were the Hothouse Flowers, who were booked to appear on St Patrick’s Day, a highlight of Cheltenham given the huge Irish connection that the festival has.  However, in the past the festival has also hosted greyhound racing as an additional activity to reduce the exodus of visitors to a more controllable crowd.

By James Dickson



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