HORDES of Scots and Geordies will be descending on the city for Royal Ascot at York as southerners stay at home, advance ticket sales have revealed.

A profile of sales of tickets for the five-day festival of horse racing has shown that the punters travelling to Knavesmire will be coming predominantly from the north-east, Scotland, the north-west and the Midlands. Chiefs at City of York Council have used post code analysis to find out where people have bought tickets for the sporting and society extravaganza, which comes to York from June 14 to 18.

The data was collected so officers could decide how best to design the traffic busting masterplan, which aims to keep York free of gridlock during the festival.

It has revealed that the one-off event will have a one-off audience, as Ascot's traditional crowd of people from the south-east of England appear to have opted not to travel north.

Nick Smith, Ascot communications boss, said the data did not include the thousands of Royal Enclosure members from the Berkshire-based course, who would be sampling the delights of the historic city in June.

He said he was delighted that northerners were taking Royal Ascot at York to their hearts.

"These statistics are accurate, and there has been a lot more interest from the north than the south, as you would probably expect," he said.

"Racing is recognised as quite a regional sport. It's not like supporting a football team and, also, we do have a large international audience.

"The nature of racing in the UK is that it is supported by people in localities, so this data is not very surprising, especially as our primary marketing was in Yorkshire."

Mr Smith said it was expected that all five days of the festival would sell out in the next month, with York Racecourse at a capacity of 56,107 punters from Tuesday to Saturday.

He added that planning for the event, held at York while Ascot undergoes a multi-million redevelopment, was going well.

"It is a massive job, but we are happy with the ticket sales, and it is absolutely fantastic if more people from the north are coming."

Updated: 08:34 Wednesday, March 09, 2005