Robyn and Jennifer discuss record-breaking attendance at Super League's Magic Weekend, a new padel centre in Coventry and a major investment for Birdworld.
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00:00Funds raised at a drinks brand, record-breaking rugby in Newcastle
00:04and the launch of a Coventry Paddle Centre. That's all coming up on today's Business Briefing.
00:15Good morning Jen. Good morning Robin. So what's the most exciting thing you've seen in the news
00:19today? Well to start off today's briefing we have some news over in Newcastle. So Super League's
00:25Magic Weekend took place over on the early May holiday weekend at St James Park in Newcastle.
00:31So the event recorded its highest ever Sunday attendance and biggest overall gate since 2018.
00:36More than 64,000 fans attended across the two days which is an increase of more than 10,000 people
00:42from last year when the event was hosted in Leeds. So Sunday's crowd hit over 32,000 people which bet
00:49the previous best of 30,793 fans at Manchester City's Etihad Stadium back in 2013. Newcastle has
00:59now hosted four of the most successful events in Magic Weekend's history and while economic impact
01:04figures for the latest event are still being calculated in previous years the weekend has
01:08generated between £6 million and £9 million for Newcastle's economy with shops, bars, hotels and
01:15restaurants all busy over the two-day event. Sounds like a fun weekend. Absolutely, so there are
01:20figures that we'll keep an eye on now. Definitely, yeah. So down to the South East today as well and
01:26news about a unique attraction which is the UK's largest bird park. Have you ever come across Bird World?
01:32No. I can't say I had either but it sounds like an exciting place down there. So it's operated by
01:38Haskins Group and they've been operating garden centres in the South East for almost 150 years. When they
01:44acquired a site back in 2020 it actually came with the surprise edition of Bird World. So they've now
01:51been operating the site for five years and it spans 26 acres on the Hampshire Surrey border. It's home
01:58to over 1,200 birds and it's currently bringing in 100,000 visitors per year. So they've been investing
02:06in it over the last few years and their investment includes a multi-million pound indoor outdoor play area
02:13and cafe and the idea is that hopefully they will get up to 165,000 visitors annually at Bird World.
02:20Wow. Yeah, so one to visit in the future. Definitely, sounds lovely. Well, you know that we cover a lot of
02:27Paddle stories here. Oh yeah, Paddle stories left, right and centre at the moment. Absolutely, so we have
02:31another one now down in Coventry. So the startup company Paddle Studios Group is set to launch the
02:37new Paddle Centre next month in a space of almost 14,000 square feet in size on the Baton Road
02:45industrial estate. Aman Choudhury and Preet Baines, both previously senior auditors at EY,
02:52who are also keen paddle players, are the entrepreneurs behind the Birmingham-based group.
02:58So the new venue in Coventry will have three courts plus a Pilates studio upstairs and the various sports
03:04instructors along with the cafe will see the creation of around 10 new jobs. So the launch date is
03:10planned for the 14th of June with the centre opening to the public on the 15th of June. Wow, exciting times
03:16in Coventry. Definitely. I feel like we've gone very hospitality focused today with our stories so far.
03:20So I'm going to move us on to drinks now. So news in from Artisan Drinks who make soft drinks,
03:26mixers, non-alcoholic drinks and things like that. So they've recently been getting some funding and
03:31they've actually smashed their funding target and raised £281,553 from 100 investors. So Artisan
03:40Drinks already have customers including The Alchemist, Nobu and Joe and the Juice and they've
03:46now got these extra funds which they're going to use to increase their e-commerce presence and their
03:52footprint outside of the UK. They're also looking to grow their TikTok account and upgrade their website,
03:58marketing and sales execution and increasing brand awareness and expanding the team eventually.
04:04So lots of exciting things there for Artisan Drinks. Brilliant. Definitely another one to keep an eye
04:09on. Well, if you want to hear more on the story that Robin just spoke of there and all the other
04:13stories that we spoke of today, you can head on over to InsiderMedia.com where you can also sign up
04:18to our newsletters and hear about our upcoming events. Thank you.