A DROP of just over 10% in attendance across the first four days of the Galway Festival (compared with 2019) has been described as a good result by racecourse manager Michael Moloney.

The crowd figures are broadly in line with Irish racing attendances for the first half of the year. A cluttered post-Covid social calendar and the cost of living crisis are thought to be the main reasons behind the dip in the numbers coming through the racecourse gates.

Speaking on Friday morning, Moloney said: “It’s been a good week, a very positive atmosphere in the enclosures and everyone delighted to see the crowds back. We’ve had over 67,000 people here during the first four days and we would certainly have taken that if offered it at the start of the week.

“The weather has been unbelievably good to us and that has helped lift the average spend per person, judging by the betting figures. The Tote was well up on Thursday.”

There are close to 2,000 people working at Ballybrit this week. While other entertainment venues have struggled to find casual employees for catering and security duties, Moloney said they had fewer recruitment issues this year than in 2019. “It was well flagged this year, so we were working on it from early on, as were our caterers, cleaners, car parking partners and the Tote. We have a lot of young people working but they are very good.”

Moloney believes the racecourse made the right call in bringing back mixed cards (flat and jumps each day), which were dropped during Covid, and by having an evening start on four of the first five days.

“Mixed cards is what Galway is all about,” he said. “Without a mixed card we would struggle to attract the numbers we do and I hope they will remain. I think the evening starts also worked well. With hotel prices so high, more people drove here and went home again, possibly after doing a day’s work.”