Churchill's night racing - effect on other businesses?

So, Churchill says they hope to get 20,000 for the first night racing tonight. Up from a 7,500 average from the normal late Friday afternoon racing/happy hour.

Been thinking to myself about how this would impact other local entertainment spots. The late Friday afternoon racing seems the perfect beginning to a night out, while the night racing (going until 11pm) seems to be a replacement of other activities(dinner, drinks, etc). The bars may not be effected as much, but what about dinner spots? Thoughts?

Yes, I know it's only a three-time experiment this go-around. But success could lead to further expansion of night racing cards...

We took some friends on the museum tour last week as the track was setting up the lights for tonight's festivities. Let's just say the employees we spoke to aren't that optimistic about the success of this experiment. According to what we heard Tuffway hit a home run with night racing as a result of free parking, dollar beers and dollar hot dogs on race night...NONE of which The Downs plans to offer (at this point).

Yeah, dollar beer/dollar bet night racing out at Turfway has been fun, and they've managed to jam the place.

I'm going out to see the last half of tonights races, but I doubt I'm going to worry too much about getting out to see all night dates. I'm not sure why they feel the need to double and triple admission prices for this (I've got my twinspires card, so it's only a buck like normal for me.)

I probably know at least 10 different groups of people that are going tonight. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a huge first night turn out and a rapidly dwindling group from there on out.

I went out expecting them to have ten to fifteen thousand, but if they were under twenty I would be amazed. It was jam packed, and a lot of people out there struck me as being first or second time racegoers.

Like Megan said, I kind of expect the first night to be big, but now that it's no longer the first official after dark race card, it's just another thing. (Breeders Cup here back in...88 I think it was, was cold and wet and run partially under the lights.)

I was playing in the Matt Winn dining room and my friends were up in Millionaire's row 6. Both were sold out.
The Chef's Table buffets were pretty darn good! It is the first one I've seen that had Arroz Con Pollo and platano maduro (that's chicken with rice and sweet fried plantains) in Louisville.
I have to say that the people that work at the track are the best! The management seems to find the nicest, and most hospitable employees.
I saw one of the elevator operators go way out of their way to help a drunk, lost chick find her group.
Definitely a better Louisville party than the downtown Bar Mall.

drunk, lost chick .

I saw alot of them out there also

WLKY was reporting that they got a crowd of 28,000.

WLKY was reporting that they got a crowd of 28,000.

That would not surprise me. From what I've heard, they got a much bigger crowd than they expected, and unfortunately were staffed for. Apparently the vending lines were longer than expected. This seems to be a theme for Friday night, events not being planned out enough.

I've heard from 2 of the people that went. 1 said it was too crowded, but still had a good time. The other one said it was miserable. Lines were too long, it was too hot, and there were so many people in some places she couldn't move. You couldn't have paid me to be there last night.

Lines were too long, it was too hot, and there were so many people in some places she couldn't move.

It wasn't as bad as some oaks days I've gone out there. It's the middle of june, of course it's going to be hot. Lines were eh, at some points there was no line for anything, at others it was twenty deep trying to get food or a drink.

We were up in the Stakes Room where we had a fabulous meal prepared by TONY MANTUANO, the chef at Spiaggia. The food was delicious & the service was friendly & attentive. He even had cooking demonstrations on each meal that night. We had a party of 8 and everyone had a great time. I had some doubts about the hype of the night, but it turned out to be a great night out.

Today's story in the CJ highlights the understaffing issues....3 related comments

1. Poor business planning on CD's part. The CD rep is quoted as saying something like "we thought we could handle a crowd of 25,000." I'll tell you the right way to handle an expected crowd of 25,000: staff for 35,000. Seems like a poorly-conceived, bottom-line move. In other words, the "let's make sure we don't pay for overstaffing, even if we come out understaffed." Good plan there.

2. Typical CD behavior as it seems the big-wigs were more than taken care of while the "average Joe" received half-ass service. Just continues a long, long trend of CD barely caring about the little man.

3. Even better work by the CJ, in that it saves the bad news story for one day after the "everything exceeded expectations" story. If we need anymore evidence (though we don't) of the CJ being nothing more than a PR machine for the city, I think we have it.

Pretty poor behavior all around. But, that's what you get when talking about 2 major corporations.

We've all had similar experiences of "understaffing" at some of the dinky restaurants around town also.
All in all, it looked like everyone was having a pretty good time to me.

dinky restaurants

Hmmm.