Whether you are in the Nursery area, general admission, the members’ dining rooms, the Elms or the Birdcage says a lot about who you are

The Melbourne Cup – it unites the nation, right? But out there at Flemington, you’ll find a class system as entrenched and as complicated as anything lifted from an Edith Wharton or Evelyn Waugh novel.

It starts off all egalitarian. The Victorian Racing Club encourages people to arrive by public transport. And most do. So you’ll have the bloke who’s been preloading with his mates at Young and Jackson since 8am crammed against an Armadale lady who lunches, fearing for his eye as the complicated netting of her $1,000 hat keeps poking him in the face.

Melbourne Cup 2015 – by the numbers Read more

Some corporate types arrive by taxi or limo and park near the Hill gate, others arrive by boat up the Maribyrnong and choppers fly back and forth from the city all day.

Around the track it’s like dozens of little villages have been constructed overnight, each with reams of unwritten rules and rituals.

‘All our friends are here’

Jenny Drummond of Hawthorn is wrapping up the last of the barbecue chicken and placing it back in the cooler. She finishes her glass of sparkling wine and gets ready to walk around the car park to visit friends.

The car park is as middle class Melbourne as summers in Portsea and dinner parties spent discussing the merits of various private schools.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nick Kotzma, Maria Conti, Angelo Conti and Michael Williams in the Nursery area on Melbourne Cup Day at Flemington Racecourse. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

Drummond and her husband have been coming to the members’ car park off and on for 15 years. Many of their friends and neighbours also have a car spot and the day is spent in a sort of pleasant drift, getting your glass filled up or filling them up for other people as they come to your car.

If you are a VRC member with a sticker you can get access to the member’s car park. Each spot in the Nursery carpark is allocated 10 passes – worth about $150 each.

A day in the car park dropping in on all your pals has a pleasing, somnolent quality if the weather is good. If it’s wet, it’s a nightmare. But now the VRC is pre-selling all tickets, you have to take whatever weather you get.

“It’s a tradition to come on Cup day and Derby day,” Drummond says. “We don’t see any races but you can put a bet on and there are screens. It’s one of those fantastic days in the Melbourne calendar that brings everyone together. It takes a lot of organising but it’s worth it – it’s very festive.”

‘Sometimes you forget the horse race is even on’

In general admission, the atmosphere shifts again. Here you can wear whatever you like – there’s no coat and tie dress code as there is in the members’ areas (not great in hot weather). Tickets aren’t cheap at around $70 for adults, plus drinks, food and gambling. Access here is restricted to the betting ring – lawns in front of the stand and the grandstand area. If you want a seat in the grandstand it’s an extra $200.

General admission is not flash, but it’s fun.

This is where the photographers get their “end of Cup day drunk people” pictures of people passed out, fighting, spewing or pashing on the lawn.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Revellers make their way through discarded beer cans at Flemington racecourse on 3 November. Photograph: Pat Scala/Getty Images

People start early here. Get in before the crowds and you can spread out a picnic blanket and have a chicken and champagne breakfast. Otherwise it’s crowded and there’s nowhere to sit. If you have a space, you guard it zealously. More than 101,000 people came to Flemington on Tuesday and by 1pm the queues for chicken and chips, a drink or a coffee seemed not to move at all. The queues to place a bet moved faster.

Duncan Redmond, 29, of Frankston, came with his parents, fiancee, her friends and their partners.

“There’s maybe 20 of us,” he said. “We’re all spread out – but that’s what I love – you pick a spot and your other mates have a spot – and you go around and see people. Sometimes you forget the horse race is even on. I got to keep reminding myself to stop talking and put on a bet.”

Order of Australia

Pearls and pumps, tiny lapel badges (a disproportionate number indicating the wearer has an Order of Australia medal) and a yellow rose in the buttonhole, scones and tea, a horror at overt drunkenness – the members’ dining rooms are Old Melbourne.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Red Cadeaux trainer Ed Dunlop (third from left) and jockey Gerald Mosse (right) stand on the home straight after the horse was injured during the Melbourne Cup. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

The dining rooms are the most peaceful places to watch the Cup. There’s no loud doof-doof music, you don’t have to queue for anything and you have a clear view of the track. At the end you get a nice cup of coffee and a mint. It’s orderly and unchanging.

Further along the track towards the Maribyrnong are the Elms. Corporates spend thousands on securing places here. It’s where you take your favoured clients – the equivalent of a corporate box at the MCG.

Economics and fashion do mix

At the Myer Fashion enclosure, Waltrund Reiner is talking about the economy.

Long odds on equality for female jockeys Read more

“I went to a pre-Cup function at the governor’s house last night and there was a speech about the economy. This day adds $40m to Victoria because everyone is buying shoes and hats, they’re staying in hotel rooms, going to restaurants,” she says.

Reiner, a milliner, is wearing a long, elegant sapphire coloured dress coat made of a fabric she sourced from the Philippines. “You get in here and you see people’s boobs hanging out. I don’t want to be a victim. I want to be comfortable. I want to walk and move.”

She is the best dressed person I see all day.

Bland and beautiful in the Birdcage

One’s first visit to the Birdcage is always a shock. Who are these people? Where do they come from?

Then there’s the shock of minor recognition … isn’t that the guy from that sunglasses commercial, the one with the weird voice? And isn’t that the footballer who now is on the cooking show, you know … his name starts with D?

The Edelsten’s were there last year – all gaudy suits and Gabby in her high hat that looked like a horn growing from her head. Their presence was missed this year. Instead it was the bland and the beautiful. Everywhere were models and Instagrammers.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lady Kitty Spencer is surrounded by media in the Birdcage on Melbourne Cup Day. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

In the Lavazza tent a friend pointed at one girl – beautiful but unfamiliar looking. “She has half a million Instagram followers,” he whispered in awe.

The models “are for the corporates to look at,” says my banker friend Tom. “All corporates use the Birdcage for relationship building. Say you are Emirates or Lexus or the Herald Sun and you have a marquee … you want your clients looking at good-looking people. So they put a few minor celebs in the tent.”

Brave men come up to the ‘good-looking people’ and try to chat them up. The models are polite and pose for selfies but detach themselves after a few minutes and go back to talking to their friends.

“I asked one of the footballers’ wives if she was happy,” said my friend. “She didn’t answer and went to the bar and never came back.”

Outside is like a weird catwalk. People stop and are stopped – posing for photos, taking selfies with fans. Everyone seems to know everyone else.

To get into a marquee in the Birdcage your name must be on the door, which is controlled with rigour. The lowest form of life in the Birdcage, the journalists, are tolerated but not always allowed in to certain marquees.

We stand outside and compare notes. “They said we couldn’t go into the Emirates marquee before or during the race,” complained one reporter.

“They let me into the Schweppes marquee, but not Lexus,” said another.

Sometimes journalists are allowed in to get “colour” for their stories but are turfed out if they are drinking.

In the marquees there are models, DJs, former and current footballers and Instagrammers – and absolutely no one seems connected to the racing industry. There are free drinks including beautifully made trays of negronis and Pimms and a veritable lake of champagne. Waiters come around with hunks of salmon, squares of watermelon stuffed with cheese, coffee and mints and mini chocolate tarts.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Radio hosts Andy Lee (left) and Hamish Blake in the Birdcage on Melbourne Cup Day. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

Everyone stops for The Race, of course. But other races are run and no one looks at the screen. They’re all looking at the models, or out at the street that runs alongside the marquee, seeing if they can see anyone worth seeing.