Towcester boss Kevin Ackerman has confirmed that the Star Sports English Greyhound Derby Final on Saturday July 1 will be an all-ticket occasion and it is already heading towards a ‘house full’ writes Floyd Amphlett.
All restaurant and exec suite places were snapped up shortly after dates were announced, though the track then set a general sale limit of 5,000 places. Almost half of those already been snapped up.
He said: “We can cater for 10,000 here without any problem, but what I don’t want to do is be caught out unprepared. We have no experience on how many people will want to attend, so we set what we considered a realistic limit of 5,000.
“We recently passed the 2,200 mark and because of the late finalisation of the sponsor, we haven’t done any marketing yet.
“I am quite confident that we will reach our target, and we will have adequate facilities to make this a great night, not just for the greyhound fans, but for those people who will be experiencing greyhound racing for the first time.”
Ackerman intends to turn the whole evening into ‘an event’. There will be street entertainers, a contemporary ukulele band, a jazz band, various other musicians and the DJ Jo Whiley will be staging a set after racing.
Ackerman has deemed the Saturday morning 8-runner racing has been a huge success with 4,500 betting shops taking the service – basically all the major players excluding Corals, Ladbrokes and Betfred.
In fact, the whole scheme may be expanded to include additional mornings and a major new international outlet.
He said: “The deal is in place, we are now determining exactly how we want to proceed. We are very satisfied with how things have gone, but be under no illusions, it has been bloody difficult.”
