US GP in Austin Discussion and Speculation...

Yes and no.

Yes, the faithful will show up but I bet a large part are locals from Texas.

Part of it will also be what's going on near the end of the season. If it's a fight to the finish, then it will pull more at the last minute.

The biggest problem I see is a lack of organization and reasonably priced hotels in the area. I imagine airfare will also be a problem as it's a long way from Austin from the biggest US cities -- too far to drive in. LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, New York --- all of them too far to drive to Austin unless you take a week's vacation.

 

2 hr drive for me, no worries.


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I'm planning on flying in and out just for the race. No worries here either.

 

I am pretty sure reasonably priced tickets will be available in June.

I'm going to defend CotA here for a minute. For F1 to be successful in the USA, it's got to be profitable even given the crazy sanctioning fees Bernie charges. Seems like there are a lot of people complaining that CotA's ticket prices aren't kind to the fan... well, how about complaining about Bernie's outrageous sanctioning fee? F1 itself is not fan-friendly with their terribly high fees... yet we expect the promoters to take a loss and throw the fans a bone on their dime? Sure, maybe it's possible with government support... but really, is that the best scenario?

So given that, I think CotA is simply trying to ensure that every spectator at the race pays the maximum they would be willing to pay for a ticket. I know that sounds horrible, but it's how any for-profit business should be optimally run.

Now, that's not to say there won't be cheap tickets -- just that those tickets will be bought by people who would pay up to, but no more than, the cost of that cheap ticket.

There will also be a middle-range group of people, perhaps the largest #, who will pay a bit more than the cheap tickets but not as much as the PSL/Season ticket price.

Then, there is the small segment that will pay to see the race regardless of the price. They are not value buyers, so the price really isn't much of an issue. Exclusivity is important to them, so are amenities (granted CotA isn't offering much, at least publicly, as far as amenities for PSL holders). Anyway, they FIRST are making sure they sell every one of these non-value buyer tickets/psls that they can.

Second I suspect they will go for the mid-range buyer. GA 3-day passes and grandstand/bleacher 3-day passes, then single day grandstand/bleacher tickets.

Finally they will sell the cheapest tickets, the 1-day GA passes, if they don't sell out the facility first.

That's my suspicion anyway....

 

...Is that "The Hot Club of Cowtown" is on a European tour during race week....Went to all the Naptown Races...had that down pat...parked within 10 feet of the same spot almost every year for free...talk about being sheep being lead by a blind dog on this one is overstating the organization's capability. As a friend said to me years ago about his condo board...how were these people every successful in their own businesses....

 

I have a room in downtown Austin for the race for less than $200/night. I would rather lose the room than give it away. The real problem, is COTA. They have their collective heads up their rectums with their ticket pricing. To the point, I really want to see them fail and lose lots of money. They care nothing for the real race fan, so I care nothing fo them. If they come up with under $300/seat in their worst grandstand, I will go. If not, I do not expect my wife to sit in some insect loaded Texas version of a grassy area.

 

At the end of the day, they will not get away with the high pricing. If this event happens at all, it will end after the second year, COTA will declare bankruptcy, and all involved should go to jail.

;}

 

Ok... I understand that. But, it people are making plans NOW. And, it seems like they are trying to gauge how high they can ask (and how many nut cases they can get to buy a season pass when there ISN'T a season) instead of just

1) being competitively priced in the market

2) being straight forward on how to buy the tickets and what they will cost.

Why do they have to make everything so difficult? It's totally frustrating.

 

They should look at the economy of California where a large chunk of the F1 fans are in the US.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, you can't say California's economy is "booming" by any means.

 

What does California have to do with anything?

 

LOL! Good point.

 

Starting in 2013, I suspect that MotoGP will bring more fans to the track than F1 anyway. From what I have read, the MotoGP race at Indy draws more fans than a lot of races at venues in Europe which have been around for decades. I still don't get a bunch of Ferrari owners and fans complaining about $300 for cheap F1 tickets. I've paid more than that for a detail of my BB512i. F1 is the pinnacle of auto racing and should command a premium price. As a business owner and fan of capitalism, I am fine with letting the market determine what people are willing to pay. As to getting there, there are plenty of flights in and out of Houston, which is a short drive from Austin. Austin has plenty of hotel accommodations to support 100,000+ college football fans several times a year, so I'm sure an F1 fan can find a place to stay. I plan to go this year, but will wait to buy tickets. It will be great if in the future, the F1 schedule will be arranged so we have the USGP-Austin, USGP-NJ, GP of Canada and GP of Brazil, GP of Mexico, all back-to-back

 

I did not complain about the implication of $300 G/A tickets, I did not respond because I did not want to hear all the BS. It's my money and I'll spend it how I want too.

 

I agree completely... However, Moto GP is no longer on the COTA schedule for 2013. Season tickets only include F1 and Australian V8. Don't expect Moto GP on COTA's schedule anytime soon. At least until the Hellmund-Cota lawsuit is done.

 

Partly prompted by the above, I went poking around the F1 "buy your tickets" site to see what some of the others are charging. [Link below]

Only India, USA & Brazil haven't yet published their prices - Take your pick of any of the others and prepare to be amazed at the stunning reasonableness thereof!

I just don't get where COTA is coming from - They obviously haven't looked at anyone else's prices and they've gotta be a dreamland with their PSL nonsense.

Cheers,
Ian
http://www.formula1.com/tickets_and_travel/

 

Sure, it would have been better if this had been done a year ago, so that people could be buying non-PSL tickets by now and have plenty of time to plan.

But, time is not a luxury that CotA has. Basically the current organization has only been in existence since December, when they got rid of Tavo. The year prior to that was wasted, nothing substantial was done except a crappy web site (which they ended up replacing) and some press conferences. All the progress you see was essentially done in the past 4 months.

Given that, plus the fact that they are paying the F1 fee right out of their own pockets, they MUST get top dollar for every ticket that they sell. Sorry to the fans, but F1 costs a ton of money, and without a government supporting you are going to have to pay more for your ticket. That's reality.

Now, CotA may indeed be asking too much, and if they don't sell the tickets then they will not break even. But it's their money, their gamble, we should stop being such cheapskates and just deal with it. Go or don't go, but I feel like we can hardly blame CotA for doing what it can. They did pay the sanctioning fee, after all. That's more than anyone in America has done for F1 in a long, long time. Indy didn't have to do it on this scale. NJ hasn't paid yet, despite what everyone thinks is a lower fee.

 

Moral of the post: "COTA is in big trouble, it's your job to pay too much." Bricks and mortar retailers get panned by Fchatters in favor of online; I don't see how COTA is MORE persuasive.

 

For me, this is what is persuasive:

Between paying $25M to get an F1 race in the USA, and building a track made specifically for F1, CoTA has done more for the sport than anyone else in this country for at least the last decade. They are far from perfect, but they are putting their money on the line when no one else would. They are working within a timeframe everyone thought was impossible. They had to deal with the loss of promised government money. So, I will cut them some slack. I understand some others won't, and that's fine too.

 

I don't grudge COTA trying to get top dollar - any business should be doing that, and a lot of us here have businesses and I am sure we all do just that.

But I think there is an opportunity cost involved with doing the PSL thing first. If they really feel the PSL option is compelling, why try to offer it as an exclusive deal prior to regular ticket sales? They could just sell both, and have reserved areas for non-PSL seats and then whatever PSL's they don't sell, offer those seats up as one-year tickets also.

By not selling regular non-PSL tickets right now, they are forcing people to make a difficult choice. Hungary, Spa, Italy, England and Germany are all on sale now, and tickets are selling out. I bought Spa tickets months in advance, and already some of the best grandstands were full. So for someone who would like to visit Austin, it's a hell of a thing to ask and expect them to sit tight for two more months - when that prospective customers know that by the time Austin tickets go on sale, not only will many/most of the European races have sold out, but it will probably be too late to make travel arrangements, especially hotels.

So if a traveling F1 fan waits for Austin, and by the time June rolls around, the deal they are offering sucks (either due to expense, viewing location, uncertainty, etc), what are your options? India, Abu Dhabi and Korea?

Or would that F1 fan just not bother trying to wait for Austin, and take the sure-thing today and buy tickets for Spa, Hungary, Germany, etc?

I think that is the biggest risk COTA is running by waiting so long to sell tickets. By the time they offer them for sale, tons of people will have given up and bought tickets to other races and no longer be prospective customers of COTA.

That seems a huge risk to me and I am not sure why they would take it. It could be that they don't want to sell PSL and non-PSL side by side to maximize PSL, but I don't think that's the case. It could also be that there is some language in the PSL contract that you're not buying an F1 ticket and there are no guarantees or something - that way, if something happens and they can't make it, they don't get sued to creation and back.

Whatever the reason, it is really harmful not to be selling tickets early, especially for a new race with existing black clouds hanging over it.

 

Totally agree that it's a risk not to sell regular tickets right now. And they likely will alienate (they already are) a lot of fans by doing so. It's a gamble and there is definitely an opportunity cost.

But I think it comes down to what you pointed out: If PSLs are so compelling, then why not sell them side-by side with regular tickets. PSLs are NOT compelling. They are not a good deal right now. You or I wouldn't buy one. The only way they can sell them is by offering no alternative. They could probably be selling a truckload of regular tickets right now, but the PSLs/season tickets bring in so much more money for a single attendee. They are going to make sure they exhaust every qualified PSL lead before letting the rest of us buy the 1 ticket to the only event we really care about right now - the 2012 USGP.

Now, I will criticize their sales process. It seems rushed and not well thought out. Perhaps that's inevitable because of the timeframe, but still, not a good thing. I think they could have completely changed the public perception of the whole PSL thing if they had done 1 single thing : offered a small set of really cheap PSLs to target value buyers. Super cheap, not great seats, and not too many of them available, first come first served. They would have sold those out in a day, and people who didn't get them would be wondering if a slightly more expensive PSL might be worth getting, before THOSE sold out. Yeah, that would have been bait and switch... but there is a reason it is done so often: it works.

 

Unfortunately, things are getting even juicier.....COTA has come out dispelling rumors that Red McCombs is selling out his interest in COTA to Tavo.

More uncertainty....it's getting hard not to feel sorry for this crew......

 

So we agree they are losing sales by not selling "normal" tickets so far, only PSL.

What is your opinion on whether the benefit of maximizing PSL sales through first-chance exclusivity exceeds the resulting loss by not having normal tickets available?

I would say the equation only could fall in the PSL-sales favor if they were able to sell a large proportion of tickets to locals with PSL's. And I would be absolutely stunned if they were able to do that.

That's my opinion - curious to hear yours. There is also the other view floated here that they are seriously hard up for $$$ and had no choice but to go the PSL route to try to maximize revenue today at the expense of more revenue tomorrow. I can definitely see that being part of it, maybe not so much "do or die" on the needing money thing, but more about greed and cashing in ASAP. But if that's the case, and I am right about the loss of normal seats, then this scheme will come back to bite them in the ass pretty quickly.

 

I think the idea is that selling fewer tickets at a much higher profit is probably better than more tickets at a lower profit. Fewer people to handle, fewer seats to build, fewer transactions, less traffic. Less concession revenue, I'm sure, but probably they have taken that into the equation. Perhaps with eye-popping food/beverage prices, which I'm sure will earn them some more bad press..

Personally, my opinion is that it's not a cash-and-run thing. McCombs seems very committed, and now DeJoria making himself public as an investor also kind of makes me think they want it to work, not just make a quick buck. I think if it was solely about the money, they would have abandoned the project when the METF money didn't come through.

In fact, I think the PSL sales are a way of making up for the lack of the $25M upfront from the state. It is perfectly valid speculation to wonder whether they are doing it to raise money for construction. If they had counted on that $25M for construction expenses, then perhaps that is the reason. If they were actually planning to just use the money immediately for the sanctioning fee, then probably the PSL sale money is paying back Red (or the group or whomever) for fronting the sanctioning fee.

 

Oh really?

2002 US F1 GP in Indianapolis
2003 US F1 GP in Indianapolis
2004 US F1 GP in Indianapolis
2005 US F1 something in Indianapolis
2006 US F1 GP in Indianapolis

4+ races. Lets see whether COTA even gets just one off the ground.

 

+1