Grand Tour Racing Festival to shift the dial on horse racing

New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing has launched its third year of The Grand Tour Racing Festival and it promises to be the most elaborate yet.

The festival aims to re-invigorate a movement around horse racing, reimaging it as a festival-style experience to engage and shift perceptions amongst a younger audience.

NZTR has worked alongside an agency village including Pitchblack Partners, Crave Global, Eleven PR and MBM to pull the festival together, which spans race days across Christchurch, Wellington, Hawkes Bay, Waikato and Auckland.

“Summer is a busy time with a lot of competition for people’s attention, we wanted to disrupt racing culture as we know it and get the next generation to come down to the track with their mates to experience something new,” says Dan Smith, Head of Marketing, Communications & Wagering Partnerships.

Working in alignment with New Zealand’s premier racing clubs and in partnership with major sponsor betcha and bar-sponsor, Zeffer, cultural movement agency Crave Global have created an unmissable on-course experience to shift the perception of the next generation around racing.

“Using the highly successful wider brand and social campaign from Pitchblack, MBM and Eleven PR. The Crave Global team have helped us evolve The Grand Tour this year, to lift the energy and experience for the younger audiences on course” says Smith.

On-course research undertaken by Crave and NZTR from previous years determined that the younger audience wanted much more entertainment – and that activities would elevate their race experience. Crave, and Endeavour Live applied the interactive and artistic entertainment elements of music festivals to the races to improve the punter experience. 

The younger generation are avid festival go-ers, so marrying a high standard of music and racing was a priority. Each race day boasts a festival-spec stage and sound system, with global acts Hot Dub Time Machine, Peking Duk and more to be announced set to entertain once the ponies go to bed. Not to mention a legendary line-up of local DJs.

“New Zealand has a rich history with horse racing, and it is a key part of the fabric of our culture. We wanted to ignite this passion in a younger generation, elevating the race-day experience to make the sport more accessible and exciting, building a movement around heading out to the races over the summer period,” says Georgina Otto, Director & Head of Experiential at Crave Global.

Key to NZTR and Crave’s activation and “entertain me” feedback from attendees, is The Stables – a fully curated concept designed to create a bold, colourful and exploratory activation experience made for the “gram”.

“The Stables are an interactive and stylistic take on traditional horse stables – with five unique rooms for punters to explore and immerse themselves. Creating spaces that were distinct, engaging and most importantly unexpected, was the priority.” says Otto.

A mysterious Wagering Clairvoyant Stable is one of the most popular experiences, entertaining punters with the element of calculated chance, which racing culture is built upon. A purpose-built Grand Tour Shoot Stable gives people an opportunity to show off glamorous race-day outfits in a professional photoshoot environment, while a neon-lit Rave Stable offers an electronic music haven, and the chromed-out Disco Bronco Stable featuring a metallic ride on horse surrounded by disco balls draws queues for an Instagram moment.

The Grand Tour kicked off on October 12th at Hawkes Bay’s virtual Livamol Classic race day at Hastings Racecourse and continued with the launch of NZ Cup Week in Christchurch.

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