A Day at Royal Ascot: Why the Relationship Comes Before the Deal 

Every year, Royal Ascot gives us an excuse to do something we don’t do often enough. 

The meeting draws hundreds of thousands of racegoers over the week, alongside its usual mix of pageantry, fashion, and hospitality. For us, it was a chance to do something we don’t get to do often enough: spend proper, unhurried time with the people we work alongside, away from email threads and site visits. 

We had the pleasure of hosting several of our partners from across the retail and commercial real estate sectors, people we’ve worked with on car park launches, site rollouts, and the day-to-day of keeping parking running smoothly at their locations. Conversations ranged well beyond parking, which was exactly the point. A day like that gives you the space to talk about what’s actually going on for someone, not just the next agenda item. 

It’s easy to underestimate how much this kind of time matters. A lot of our working relationships are built in short calls and quick site check-ins, useful, but not always the setting where trust really deepens. Days like Ascot do something different. They give people the chance to be a bit more themselves, and that tends to carry through into how a relationship works afterwards. 

There’s a link, too, between how we think about hosting a day like this and how we think about the sites we manage. Whether it’s a car park or a race day, the same principle applies: show up properly, make things easy, and put the person’s experience first. Get that right and everything else – the numbers, the repeat visits, the long-term relationship – tends to follow. 

Our thanks to everyone who joined us on the day. We had a wonderful day time, and we’re already looking at how we can do something similar again.