United States Grand Prix - Formula One (F1) - Austin

[b1ake]

I was there and have a few comments on some things I heard/saw.

-I was told that 40,000 of the 120,000 plus tickets sold were purchased in Mexico.

-Trackside Suites were $250,000 for the weekend and they were ALL jammed packed.

-Helicopter landing permits were $10,000 PER DAY. Did you guys see all the helicopters coming and going all day?

-I was impressed how friendly everyone was at the facility. They did a great job putting on the event, but you could tell this was the trial run.

-Next year they need to double or triple the amount of food vendors. The lines were crazy long even on Friday.

-Traffic/Bus stuff was done so much better than I ever imagined.

-We saw both Heikki Kovalainen and Emerson Fittipaldi at the toll booths. Emmo did a full launch in his rental car from the gate lift. LOL

[aggie97]

Decent effort Aggie, but the biggest miss was you are only including the Sunday race. There was over 80,000 people there on Saturday and approximately 65,000 there on Friday.

My neighbor and I reserved a room at the QUALITY INN off of 71 many, many months ago at a price of $450/night. We split it with his son, so the 3 days we were there it was $450/person plus taxes. I was in Turn 4 and my 3 day pass was around $330. Food, drink, gas, Ferrari hat, and other random crap put my cost over $1200 for the weekend. I went cheap and I only lived 3.5 hours from COTA.

There was a huge number of foreigners there from Mexico, Canada, and overseas. They were throwing money around like it was nothing. Concessions made some big money as EVERYTHING was expensive and people didn't care. I had my first $14 sausage dog there and it was big and good, but it was freaking $14.

I think COTA did a great job considering the time constraints. They need to pave a lot more out there and they need at least one or two pedestrian tunnels added, so people aren't stuck in that island of no return hell with only 1 pedestrian bridge for all in and out traffic. That was the biggest bottleneck I saw there. All in all, it was a blast and I hope to go back.

Sounds like spending was rediculous and I wonder how TX will collect sales tax from the McLaren store! I did hear the nightmare about the CC transactions. Still don't understand why people pay those prices for shirts and hats....hell, you can buy all that stuff for 1/4 of that. Seems like the "F1 Frenzy of Spending" is like oxygen in the casinos.

Was RV parking really $15,000 per day? Hard to imagine that is real.

[Bputacoma]

^ what he said. I paid $10 bucks for a flipping hot pocket!!! But the $12 brisket sloppy nachos were damn good!

[quikag]

I don't know if this number includes the original land purchase but the broadcast of the race said that it was around 400 million dollars to build. Sounds reasonable when compared to the numbers I have heard about MMP which was built to FIA'ish specs.

So, let's put some actual numbers to this.

117,429 in attendance at an average of $120ea = $14,091,480 in ticket sales minus 10% for ticketmaster = $12,682,332.

Decent effort Aggie, but the biggest miss was you are only including the Sunday race. There was over 80,000 people there on Saturday and approximately 65,000 there on Friday.

My neighbor and I reserved a room at the QUALITY INN off of 71 many, many months ago at a price of $450/night. We split it with his son, so the 3 days we were there it was $450/person plus taxes. I was in Turn 4 and my 3 day pass was around $330. Food, drink, gas, Ferrari hat, and other random crap put my cost over $1200 for the weekend. I went cheap and I only lived 3.5 hours from COTA.

There was a huge number of foreigners there from Mexico, Canada, and overseas. They were throwing money around like it was nothing. Concessions made some big money as EVERYTHING was expensive and people didn't care. I had my first $14 sausage dog there and it was big and good, but it was freaking $14.

I think COTA did a great job considering the time constraints. They need to pave a lot more out there and they need at least one or two pedestrian tunnels added, so people aren't stuck in that island of no return hell with only 1 pedestrian bridge for all in and out traffic. That was the biggest bottleneck I saw there. All in all, it was a blast and I hope to go back.

[momo]

i just have to add:

general admission ($170) was the majority of the tickets sold. the money made from them was probably washed out with staff costs and transportation. there were SO many buses it had to be costly seeing as every charter bus in the area was there along with the entire surrounding school districts including dallas.


that being said, i'm pretty sure where cota made this worth it against the $25M fee was:

the main grandstand was full. these were PSL only, the cheapest PSL was $2000 per ticket + $500 for the season ticket. the other PSL rates were $3K, $4k, $5.5K and even $40,000 for a box.

RV parking was $15,000 PER DAY and it was essentially full.

I saw at least 1000 people roaming the paddock during the pit access. those folks bought the paddock club pass. that was $4200 each ($6500 if you want the package with lodging).

there were trackside suites in various corners and of course bleacher seats throughout that were full.

merchandise sales looked big. the mclaren store was sold out of a jacket i had my eye one and it was $200. the only ones they had left was size XL for the $250 jacket.

cota shirts were like $30, hats were $40. lines were huge, people were buying and wearing them all weekend.

there were a few horrible things about the track that need fixing:
concession
credit cards
atm
bathrooms


overall, i will say this was a success but the whole thing could have been ruined if there was rain (see korea 2011). there was too much that could have been turned to mud and slop this year that just isn't paved yet. surely by next year the facility should get most of the lose ends worked out.

[Slowhand]

Lol yeah go ahead and triple those prices...and you're only looking at the first race. Nobodies taken it in the pants yet. Not even close...

I'm not going to call it an astounding success yet, but I think you'd be hard pressed to call it a bust at this point. I didn't venture downtown much and kept to townie restaurants/bars, but even they were packed between the F1 crowd and locals that had been pushed out of downtown by the crowds.

I'd say 60-70% of the attendees were foreign. When you're spending $2-3k just to get to the race and be there, you might as well go the rest of the way. I've rarely seen money fly around the way I saw it do so this weekend.

[Slowhand]

Another US F1 team? Is he gonna partner up with Peter Windsor and fail again? Buying HRT would be a cheaper way to get started, but they suck. As for Marussia, they are getting better with every race and beating Caterham some of the time with less money and No KERS. Plus with them being 10th in the constructors, they'll get alot of money compared to 11th/12th spot to help them.

I don't believe so. My details on it are few and secondhand through someone who is legal counsel for an individual who has been approached to invest/round up support for the race. They're meeting this week, maybe I'll be able to squeeze some more information out after that.

Marussia did put on a good showing this weekend.

[Ruffdaddy]

Lol yeah go ahead and triple those prices...and you're only looking at the first race. Nobodies taken it in the pants yet. Not even close...

[Bputacoma]

Am I the only one kinda bothered that not a single American was in this race?

Don't worry! There's two up and coming American's. Alexander Rossi and Eddie Cheever Jr. Rossi was supposed to do a Practice session, but that was scrapped.

Grape, you'll love this: Tavo is rounding up money-folks in the Austin area this week to try and start finding money to put together the long rumored US F1 team. HRT is for sale, so it makes sense, but that team is either going to be awful (like HRT and Marussia) because they don't properly fund it, or Tavo is going to get another plaything essentially for free.

Another US F1 team? Is he gonna partner up with Peter Windsor and fail again? Buying HRT would be a cheaper way to get started, but they suck. As for Marussia, they are getting better with every race and beating Caterham some of the time with less money and No KERS. Plus with them being 10th in the constructors, they'll get alot of money compared to 11th/12th spot to help them.

[Slowhand]

From being there, your average spending and ticket prices are hysterically low. RV parking wasn't anywhere near $250.

Average spending is way off, though. I saw plenty of people spend that much at the merch tents alone. The average person attending that race isn't bubba joe NASCAR.

[aggie97]

$120 each? Cheapest general admission tickets were $159 and I think the cheapest seats were $265?

whoops...I was thinking V8 Super car prices....

Just got busy at work, will have to go back and recalc later.

[GAP]

$120 each? Cheapest general admission tickets were $159 and I think the cheapest seats were $265?

[aggie97]

looked as if they all did a great job, no problems that i know of with the event, other than they spent 1 billion to gross, maybe 5 million lol.

I don't know if this number includes the original land purchase but the broadcast of the race said that it was around 400 million dollars to build. Sounds reasonable when compared to the numbers I have heard about MMP which was built to FIA'ish specs.

So, let's put some actual numbers to this.

117,429 in attendance at an average of $120ea = $14,091,480 in ticket sales minus 10% for ticketmaster = $12,682,332.

Lets guess 30,000 paid for parking passes and RV parking at 250 each average. $7,500,000 minus 10% ticketmaster is $6,750,000.

Concessions are wiped out by staff costs if not in the hole. Remember they had 375 course workers for this event although they may have been volunteers like the SCCA.

So, let's figure out the sales tax revenue generated for our fair state.

117,429 let's say on average spend $750 per person for the weekend in food, travel, hotels and swag. I think this is a good number based on what I have heard from people who went. That's $88,071,750....x 6.5% state tax. That's only $5,725,000 for our great state of TX who forked over how much from the Event fund? So if the State of TX paid $25M, those 117,429 would have had to spend $3270 each just to pay back the sales tax.

My guess is the track may have faired well, but the state of TX took it in the shorts.

[Slowhand]

Grape, you'll love this: Tavo is rounding up money-folks in the Austin area this week to try and start finding money to put together the long rumored US F1 team. HRT is for sale, so it makes sense, but that team is either going to be awful (like HRT and Marussia) because they don't properly fund it, or Tavo is going to get another plaything essentially for free.

[SC457A]

Am I the only one kinda bothered that not a single American was in this race? It seems either Americans turn left or just go straight. I know cubic dollars are a HUGE part of F1, but still it seems kind of sad.

Perhaps Top Gear is right to make fun of turns being so akward to Americans