The 2025 Cheltenham Festival gave us drama on the track, but there was just as much drama involved with the attendance figures over the four days, plus what happened in the build-up.
There’s no doubt that Cheltenham is ultimately losing its appeal. But rather than switch things up and give people an incentive to come back, the racecourse continues to plough on with the same old issues year in and year out.
Let’s be honest, ultimately, it’s too expensive. This isn’t all on the course, it’s the overall package, but for most I know who have either stopped attending or cut back on how many days they attend, price is the issue.
I think we all want to watch the best racing, we want to be there for the big moments in a sport we love. But at the same time, everything has its price, and right now, Cheltenham is too expensive.
2025 Cheltenham Festival Attendances
The numbers are in, and whether you’re looking at the top-line figures or taking a deeper dive, they don’t make great reading for bosses at the venue.
Over the four days, a total of 218,839 people would go to the meeting. This is a decrease of just under 5% from 2024, where the figure was 229,999.
2022 is a difficult festival to judge and compare because it was the first post-Covid festival, and sporting events were all reporting surges. But since then, Cheltenham has seen a 22% decrease in attendees.
While some of that can definitely be put down to the Covid-bounce, it does show that racing has failed to retain 22% of the people who came in 2022. We all talk about racing being a sport that once you’re in it and you’ve found your love, you can never leave. Well, these people have.
| Day | 2025 | 2024 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | 55,498 | 60,181 | 68,567 |
| Wednesday | 41,949 | 46,771 | 64,431 |
| Thursday | 53,366 | 53,918 | 73,754 |
| Friday | 68,026 | 69,129 | 73,875 |
I think when you look at the table, the first thing to note is that Friday is strong, continues to be, and probably always will be, as it’s Gold Cup day. For the past three years, attendances have been capped at around 68,500 depending on staff and hospitality numbers, so the last two years have been as good as sold out.
But when you look elsewhere, we see quite considerable changes, down 13,000 on Tuesday, 23,000 on Wednesday and 20,000 on Thursday, when you compare to the highs of 2022. I don’t think 2022 is achievable ever again, but at the same time, it’s good to see how much things have changed in such a relatively short period.
I think Cheltenham should definitely take not of the figures for Wednesday. Firstly, the 41,949 figure is the lowest this century, the previous low was just over 45,000 in 2000.
But secondly, because this is the toughest day to get people there. Many that I know go on the Tuesday, many go on Friday, and some people who go for multiple days but not the full festival will go on Thursday and Friday. But Wednesday, in the middle, is tough to get people in for, and I think we’re seeing that unfold right now.
But all this talk of Wednesday cannot take the eye off the bigger picture. Tuesday, arguably the biggest day for excitement, a day that many love because of the Champion Hurdle, saw its lowest attendance since 2012 this year.
What Impact Did Free Tickets Have?
It’s vital that we remember the context in which this is all being played out in because it adds even more weight to the fact that the meeting is struggling.
We’ve just talked about the lowest Wednesday attendance this century, the smallest Tuesday attendance in over a decade, an almost 5% drop on last year, and a 22% drop on 2022.
This has all happened when, for the first time in the modern era, Cheltenham effectively pushed out free tickets to racing fans.
I’m sure some readers will have received the same email as me, offering bonus Rewards4Racing points to be claimed against tickets for the Cheltenham Festival.
It was slightly different for a few people I know, but I personally got £100 worth of free points added to my own account, meaning I could have bought a ticket to the Cheltenham Festival for free.
If Cheltenham had anything about themselves, they would announce the numbers that took up this offer and for which days so we could see how that impacted on attendances.
My gut feeling is that it wouldn’t have had much of an impact, a few hundred freebies here and there over the week. But how does that make the future look? Cheltenham have just started selling what they call ‘super early bird’ tickets for the 2026 festival.
Yes, they’re much cheaper than they will be in a few months, but would you buy one if you’d purchased last year only to be offered tickets for free nearer the week of the meeting?
It won’t drive early sales, that is for sure, and I think it’ll hamper them.
Can the Racecourse Actually Improve Things?
I think this final part is where the conundrum really begins to become straightforward for people discussing the festival and how to improve figures.
Can the racecourse actually do anything themselves to improve things? I’m not here to stick up for them, but actually, no, I don’t think they can. Ahead of the 2025 Festival there was big talk about racegoer improvements but ultimately it made no difference.
Prices are high, but not stupidly high, and definitely on par with other premium events across other sports. I don’t like to compare horse racing and football because they couldn’t be more different, but Cheltenham, for example, stands up well to things such as the FA Cup Final in football with its pricing point.
The problem we’ve got is all the other associated costs with the meeting. Not many want to get to and from the racecourse on the same day, and of those that do this, not many want to drive, for understandable reasons.
This brings in the price of hotels and apartments, as well as the price of travel, train being the most popular for many. The accommodation market in Cheltenham is tiny for an event such as the festival, so even with declining numbers attending, prices can still be pushed through the roof for those who want to stay very close by.
Train prices are as high as they’ve ever been for commuters up and down the country, even when you book in advance, which adds a real hike to transport costs for many people.
But there’s absolutely nothing that the racecourse can do to bring any of those costs down. So yes, knock £10 here and there off admission prices, maybe knock £1 off the price of a pint. But those small savings are going to mean nothing in the pocket of punters when the bigger costs remain unaltered or, worse, keep going up.
Early bird prices and multi-day ticket options are positives, but I’m not sure what else can be done until the things outside of the course’s control can be changed because alone, they’ll make little impact.
It’s not great, and there’s certainly plenty of food for thought to all concerned.