Member Article

St Patrick's Celebrations to Boost City Centre Venues

PUBS and bars in Newcastle are expecting a boost, when the St Patrick’s Day celebrations get underway at a popular raceday on Saturday 14th March.

Newcastle Racecourse has teamed up with Guinness owners Diageo and several venues in the city comprising Rosies, Nine Bar, Shark Club, The Charles Grey, The Tyneside Irish Centre, NE4 Bar & Café, Newcastle Arms and The Strawberry – to ensure that the thousands of racegoers expected to attend the annual MTrec St Patrick’s Day fixture have somewhere to go to continue the celebrations straight from Gosforth Park.

Working with Diageo, the venues will be official ‘After-Party Hosts’, with special offers including £1 off a pint of Guinness in exchange for their race ticket, giveaways and Irish themed entertainment. Following the last race at 5.40pm a free shuttle bus will run on a loop to transport racegoers into the city centre at the Monument where the first location on the bar crawl will be The Charles Grey.

John Munsey, Operations Manager at The Charles Grey, said: “St Patrick’s is an iconic event and a massive opportunity for local businesses and it is great that the racecourse is leading the celebrations and providing a platform for other venues to get involved. It is fantastic that they have teamed up with Diageo which is using the Guinness brand to work with local outlets - by supporting a range of venues it is going to help drive trade across the city and will benefit all the outlets who have been involved. I think that this is a great blueprint that Diageo have put together and once we have seen the success from this year there could even more room to grow the event.”

Newcastle Racecourse is set to welcome over 4,000 guests to the MTrec St Patrick’s Raceday for a packed seven race card with the first getting underway at 2:10pm and the last at 5:40pm. The racecourse itself has a packed schedule of entertainment including performances by Irish dancers from the Kelly Hendry School who will be entertaining race-goers at intervals throughout the day and Irish band ‘The Derry Boys’ will be performing in the Grandstand Hall and The Border Minstrel pub, which will be decked out for the occasion, after racing.

David Williamson, executive director of Newcastle Racecourse, said that partnering with the pubs and bars would give racegoers the chance to carry on their evening long after racing finishes and would be an economic boost for the city: “The St Patrick’s Raceday is one of the most popular events in our National Hunt calendar, attracting large numbers of people to enjoy the racing and revelry.

“We’re keen to make sure that other businesses in the area see the benefit, so by partnering with a number of bars and pubs in the city means that we are making it as easy as possible for people who have enjoyed a day of racing to go into the city-centre to continue their St Patrick’s Day celebrations.”

General admission tickets for the MTrec St Patrick’s Raceday start from £15 (when booked online in advance) and a special Premier Guinness offer to include a Premier admissions ticket, racecard and a pint of Guinness is available priced at £25.

For more information or to buy tickets call 0191 236 2020 or go to www.newcastle-racecourse.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Owen Pugh Group .