Alzarius

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  • #182302
    Alzarius
    Participant

    Prices just landed in my email inbox an hour ago, and for the last hour, I’ve been searching for the best tickets. “Presale” lasts until Sunday June 10, then everything is opened up to the public.

    Prices listed on the website are:
    Pit straight, Turn 1, and Turn 15 all require a seat license fee so I didn’t bother to look there.

    Grandstand bleachers 3-day pass:
    Turn 2,3,4,5 $299 (+$20 transaction fee per ticket extra)
    Turn 11 $269
    Turn 12 rows 1-15 $399
    Turn 12 rows 16 and up $499

    I decided to go for Turn 12 rows 1-15. kept refreshing tickets in my cart to get a higher row but it is near impossible to get anything above row 8. I saw row 12 once but was too late to pull the trigger so the tix were gone from my cart.

    In the end, I got Turn 12, section 4, row 8. Not too shabby I guess. Sections are numbered from lowest to highest in the direction of the race (i.e. cars pass from 1 to 2 to 3 etc), as seen in the diagrams for the seat license sections. I was looking for these diagrams and spent too much time, hence missed out on the row 12 seat.

    General admission is $159 for the 3 days. All tickets include shuttle transportation.

    I guess the prices are not too different from the Montreal race? I remember paying around $450-$500 for a 3-day pass at Grandstand 11 last year in Montreal. Here the non-premium grandstands run up to a similar price, and higher up for the premium ones.

    #182300
    Alzarius
    Participant

    I’m hoping that the prices we’ll see in the coming months will be a bit better/lower. Seems like if you’re a local in Austin, or are a fanatic of ALL motorsports (not just F1), then you can get the absolute best seats for a super-premium price (seat license + season package for ALL races).

    Then when these promoters figure out that no fish is biting, they’ll lower the prices to the general public who just want to see that one F1 race (not the MotoGP, not the V8 supercars etc), and have a weekend package pricing that might be more palatable.

    At least I hope…. otherwise I’ll just skip it this year and go back to Montreal next year- better city, better transportation. I paid about $450 for a weekend package in Grandstand 11 there last year, so if Austin goes way above that, then forget about it.

    #182277
    Alzarius
    Participant

    I started to look for hotels way back in January, and even then they were going for $300 at least for even the basic 2-star hotels.

    #182296
    Alzarius
    Participant

    I agree. As I wrote elsewhere, the F1 audience is fundamentally different than those for NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL etc where there is a clear advantage in purchasing a PSL and a season ticket package where you can support your local team for many games.

    Much of the F1 audience are probably NOT going to be Austin locals. They’re going to be fans from other states or other countries. A PSL and season ticket package has no utility for those people.

    This is simply a very poor way to market the event, and seems to be put together by people who have no clue at all as to who goes to these races. Absolutely ridiculous.

    #182291
    Alzarius
    Participant

    Guess I will contact them and see what the scoop is. They make it sound like the deposit gets you on a waitlist to purchase the seat license first, and THEN you get to buy tickets for the best seats. I have no desire to buy the seat license (or 2 seat licenses if I take my wife with me to each race). Just not worth the $$$ for 1 event a year. I understand the value of a seat license for other sports like football or baseball, where there are several (or many) home games each season. This would be poor value for a F1 race venue, where there is only one race a year. Who would want to spend over $1000 for a seat license for that?

    Again, i’ll ask COTA to see what the scoop is

    #182289
    Alzarius
    Participant

    Ok.. Got an email from COTA about putting a $100 deposit down for Select Seating (suites and premium grandstand seats), but the faq area is not clear to me. Is the deposit all there is to allow you to get select seating, or do you also have to buy the seat license starting March 1st (they say $1000-$5000) and then after you buy the seat license you then get to buy select seating? Is the deposit also applied to the cost of the actual ticket? their webpage is kind of vague, but they are clear that this is first come first served.

    General admission tickets start early summer

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)