Arena is thrilled to support The Festival presented by Magners at Cheltenham for the 15th consecutive year. Guests at The Festival will join a quarter of a million others to catch the highlight of the Jump race season and enjoy undoubtedly one of the most popular racing events in the UK calendar, between March 12th and 15th 2019.
Arena’s triple-deck structure, the longest in the world at 180m long, promises to be the focal point of The Festival, housing a sumptuous smorgasbord of course-side hospitality. The phenomenal structure will accommodate more than 25,000 hospitality guests across the four days.
The interiors, also delivered by Arena, have surpassed expectations this year. Customers have a fantastic choice of a variety of luxurious settings and stunning environments to suit every budget.
Arena’s project director Ben Sly oversaw the construction and interior fit-out of the suites, restaurants and hospitality boxes and all the support services within the triple decker, as well as the adjacent Guinness Village structure, which gives another 75m of viewing onto the home straight. Along with his team, he’s been on site since November ’18.
Ben says “As always, we have worked to innovate and introduce new concepts within our facilities. This year sees a complete refit and introduction of a fantastic new feature restaurant, The Horse & Groom. The Orchard Guests have the privilege of a spectacular new viewing box and The Jockey Club Room has been upgraded with a new feature entrance. A much grander atrium wowed guests and let’s not forget the award-winning Arena fit out of The Theatre Restaurant where guests have unrivaled views over the final fences of the racecourse and of course, are privy to a unique culinary feast.”
Arena installed 1,000 Clearview, tiered, terraced seats in the Guinness Stand and 1,000 seats in the Best Mate Stand and the Head on Stand, ensuring festival goers don’t comprise on comfort when viewing the thrilling racing. Several viewing platforms and crucially, standby cover during the event complete the Arena seating offering.
Well Dressed Tables, Arena’s furniture hire and catering equipment hire company supplied over 15,000 covers of catering equipment across the site using some more quirky pieces for Chez Roux, Theatre Restaurant, Bentley and the new Horse & Groom Pub. This included new bespoke Marble plates, coloured Highgate water glasses and our eclectic range of gold cutlery.
Christopher Piggott, Managing Director of Well Dressed Tables, explains:
‘’We’re delighted to have supplied The Festival with a vast range of catering equipment and furniture across the site with a key focus on the Tented Village. Significant investment was made into bespoke new ranges including new furniture and bespoke pieces of catering equipment. Our team has done a fantastic job working together to deliver my favourite Cheltenham Festival of the last few years, many of the new areas have been real show stoppers’’.
Arena’s furniture hire specialists, Spaceworks provided a wide range of furniture across multiple areas of The Festival site, including The Jockey Club Chalet, Final Fence Restaurant, Chez Roux Boxes and the new Horse & Groom Pub. The array of furniture supplied from the company’s extensive inventory included Oak Cross Back Chairs and matching bespoke made Wooden Dining Tables, Spectra Dining Chairs, new Blenheim Soft Furnishings and more.
Greg Lawless, Arena Group’s CEO states: “Cheltenham is such a great example of Arena’s fully integrated offering, we supply everything from the design and build (which encompasses scaffolding, structures & seating), to interior fit outs and we even supply vast amounts of bespoke furniture and tableware for the event. I am delighted with the new innovations this year and believe this remarkable event is a fantastic example of Arena’s turnkey service that is unrivaled within the UK events market. We pride ourselves on delivering the Arena Standard and as always, the end result is stunning. The experiences offered to VIP guests are truly memorable. Arena has worked with The Jockey club for 35 years now, we take nothing for granted, we value this winning relationship.”
