The Wiener Nationals is an event that Wienerschnitzel continues to sponsor, 26 years later. It’s an event that is fun, and of course, a little bit silly—it’s wiener dogs racing on a horse track afterall. An event like this aligns with the brand as it combines fun, positive moments, while not taking themselves too seriously. There are no sales KPI for this event, it’s a way for Wienerschnitzel to be in the fabric of the community while helping raise money for a non-profit, no-kill animal care center.
In celebration of the 26th Annual Wiener Nationals, we wanted to celebrate the history of this race by highlighting notable winners.
We created a pop-up museum experience featuring bespoke fine art portraits that captured the likeness of Wiener Nationals racing icons such as Mr. Schnitzel, Baby Bo, and Princess Smoochy Gucci. These digitally painted giclee prints, displayed in massive gold frames, depicted our wiener dog legends in all their four-legged splendor. But we didn't stop there. This portraiture exhibit paired with an interactive audio tour that revealed each dog's championship story—turning each portrait into a museum stop where guests could scan custom QR codes with their smartphones to listen to the historically accurate origin stories of each dog and hear why they stand tall among the competition and deserve a place in the Wiener Dog Hall of Fame.
There were ~100 wiener dogs racing. Fun fact, a total of 1,861 wiener dogs have raced in the Wiener Nationals.
Attendance was estimated at 6,500 paid admissions this year (a +15% increase from 2022). Note that ages 17 and under have free admission, so it’s safe to say the attendance was well over 7,000+. It’s difficult to give a total combined attendance for the 26 runnings of the Wiener Nationals as they can only count the paid attendance. Based on paid attendance, we’re looking at more than 178,000 patrons, but that does not include guests ages 17 and under since kids are admitted for free (and this is largely a family event). We know that this day is by far the busiest day of the year for the Los Alamitos Race Course. Estimated impressions at store-level are 902,616.
Estimated money raised for the SBACC in 2023 was approximately $12,000. More than $300,000 has been raised over the last 26 years of the event.
It was talked about on Good Day LA, Inside Edition, KTLA, USA Today, among others. This was largely organized by the Los Alamitos Race Course + their PR. Other pubs picked up the event too, see screengrab below. On the day of the event, ABC was on hand for a long interview in addition to KABC Los Angeles and multiple other ABC stations used nationally. Footage of this interview was used in People Magazine, USA Today, and even NY Post.
