Jockey Club Venues, the world-class brand of 15 famous and historic horseracing venues, hosted an exclusive networking event for agents and media on Tuesday, 10 November at Pennethorne’s Café Bar, Somerset House.
Welcoming guests to the event Rebecca Hamilton, Group Head of Marketing for The Jockey Club, explained that the evening cocktail reception is the latest activity in promoting the Jockey Club Venues brand to the MICE market.
Charles Howard, General Manager for Jockey Club Rooms in Newmarket, a private members’ club established more than 250 years ago and now a corporate event and wedding venue, highlighted that “location is everything” with each of the 15 Jockey Club Venues located on the edge of an urban area with beautiful countryside and sweeping views to compliment their legendary sporting heritage and flexibility in destination to the MICE market.
Working closely with local suppliers such as farmers to provide sustainable high quality local produce is what is not only “best for Britain” but what is required to meet clients’ requirements for business event food and beverage, added Nick Campbell, Managing Director of Jockey Club Catering.
Charlotte Jarman, Account Manager for BlueHat Group commented: “Jockey Club Venues represents a fantastic portfolio of racecourses, each with an abundance of conference and events space, both indoors and out. Their extensive reach across the country has proved invaluable when recommending venues to our clients and we’ve been delighted to work closer with The Jockey Club over the past year. The high quality event was a perfect reflection of the great service Bluehat Group and our clients continue to receive from The Jockey Club Venues team.”
Endellion King, Senior Project Manager from AddingValue added: “Relatively few venue companies have recently rebranded already-known venues as a group offer, so it’s encouraging to see another premium venue brand like Jockey Club Venues take this route.
“Working as we do at a national level with Jockey Club Venues, networking events such as these are key to building relationships and reminding event bookers of the product offering across all venues.”
Tom Manners, Group Sales & Marketing Director for The Jockey Club said: “This was a great ‘on-brand’ opportunity for us to continue building direct relationships with national C&E agents and others, as well as showcasing Jockey Club Venues catering. It’s really important to properly and directly access the huge sales channel that agents handle. It’s also clear to us that this kind of activity is absolutely de rigeur in our industry.”
The event follows the recent introduction of a new website jockeyclubvenues.co.uk aimed at providing meeting and event planners with a key tool to access all 15 Jockey Club Venues racecourse locations and compare its enticing combination of quintessentially British heritage venues and modern facilities all in one place.
Entertainment at the Jockey Club Venues networking event was provided by string quartet Stringfever using Violectra electric string instruments to provide an engaging and memorable performance, in keeping with Jockey Club Venues’ high quality events, including an upbeat ‘Movies Melody’ competition to win VIP race day tickets and a luxury Greenalls Gin hamper.
