[Official] Round 9: British Grand Prix 2014

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

i would compare the most expensive Wimbledon tickets to a paddock pass in F1 which i believe starts at around 5K and goes up considerably from there.

http://tickets.formula1.com/

link to F1.com ticket page.

Silverstone does seem to be a bit on the high side but not excessively so considering one would expect demand to be highest there imo.

oddly (and off topic) but if you click on the 2014 Russian GP is says tickets are not on sale yet.

Perhaps they know something we don't....

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Moneyseeker

Perhaps they know something we don't....

no im pretty sure we all know you cant sell real tickets to fictional events.

[bella]

the russian gp tickets have been and gone, i believe. a friend from moscow really wanted to go, but it was a blink and you miss it job.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by bella

the russian gp tickets have been and gone, i believe.

that makes more sense but bad jokes aside putting a 'sold out' next to the section seems to me more preferable then saying 'Ticket sales for this event are not yet available'

anyways i should have posted this in the future gp thread. sorry.

[bella]

i fibbed, i've just had a rummage and they're still available but the site isn't working at the moment :/

https://www.facebook.com/formulasochi

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

My parents lucky enough to win Centre Court tickets a few years back, so I guess that's cheaper than F1...

[FAS33]

would rather watch a car race then seeing balls gettin hit left and right.

[Armco Bender]

Well that was short was sweet for Susie.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by Armco Bender

Well that was short was sweet for Susie.

Not so sure about sweet, but it was definitely short! Massa's given the Williams boys a tough job after that shunt...

[Juarez Jed]

Originally Posted by FAS33

would rather watch a car race then seeing balls gettin hit left and right.

How about the musikverein in vienna fas, perhaps you'd enjoy waving your melbourne storm flag there ?

[medius]

Don't forget that the place has (recently) had an expensive track upgrade, pit complex and still need to find the £££ to pay for a tunnel (and/or bridge), ticket prices will have to cover that as I don't see Silverstone making any money from club events every other month.

[FAS33]

Originally Posted by Juarez Jed

How about the musikverein in vienna fas, perhaps you'd enjoy waving your melbourne storm flag there ?

umm I think you have to explain that one to me.


Rosberg tops FP1

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by medius

Don't forget that the place has (recently) had an expensive track upgrade, pit complex and still need to find the £££ to pay for a tunnel (and/or bridge), ticket prices will have to cover that as I don't see Silverstone making any money from club events every other month.

Having been in it many times, I still can't believe that 'the wing' cost £26M and that nobody thought of something simple like putting the toilets on the same floor as they use for function/hospitality and not down two flights of stairs and a corridor.....

[bella]

they are lovely toilets though, for a circuit anyway

in a way it's beneficial for a cleaning and no-queues point of view to have them all centralised, though there are seperate ones on the media level to keep them seperate from the rich and cultured in hospitality

the wing is incredibly irritating though. it's just in completely the wrong place.

[bella]

is it just me or has there been a lot of failures of various kinds today in practice?

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by bella

is it just me or has there been a lot of failures of various kinds today in practice?

There was:

Fuel (Wolff)
Driver (Massa)
Electronic (Frijns)
Turbo (Ricciardo)
Something (Vettel)
Wheel nut (Vergne)
Something else (Ericsson)
Something else (Hamilton)
And now for something completely different (Sutil)

If I've missed anything (and I'm pretty sure I have) then please correct me

[sweetchuk]

Originally Posted by LC2guy

Jeez, this makes Silverstone look cheap .... from Joe Sawards Blog;

Curious about ticket prices, I went on the Web to look at ticket prices for the Men’s Final at Wimbledon, on the same day as the British GP, and found that I could secure one for $8,200. I also looked at the World Cup Final in Brazil and was curious to see that I could get a ticket for between $5,500 and $13,500 .......

So, in the overall scheme of things, F1 tickets are not that expensive. People with normal real world salaries need to save up to be able to afford them but they are not numbers from outer space as is seen in some other events.

People in normal real world jobs with real world salaries cannot afford this though, that's the point.
World Cup & Wimbledon are watched by multi-billions around the world and attendance at the finals for those events are attended either by people who don't or would never need to ask the price of a ticket, or who would sell their own grandmother for a shot at a ticket.

It'll be a cold day in hell before multi-billions globally watch any F1 race, especially with the current anaemic presentation both aurally & visually, so prices really should be re-examined seriously & priced accordingly, otherwise the sport will continue to degrade in connection with the people who supported and made the sport of F1 viable - the average bread & butter family who (formerly) enjoyed attending the events.

If Bernie considers he can have F1 survive with stuffed wallet niche elitist attendees or those few who can throw large $$ attending the events, then more power to him.
I personally do not share that view, and like many others here, refuse now to attend simply because I put my family's needs first, rather than the greedy megalomaniac monetary desires of an over the hill old geezer who is more a legend in his own mind these days than anywhere else.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by sweetchuk

World Cup & Wimbledon are watched by multi-billions around the world and attendance at the finals for those events are attended either by people who don't or would never need to ask the price of a ticket, or who would sell their own grandmother for a shot at a ticket.

I do believe that if you fully research F1 viewing figures (as commuted as an annual audience) is second only to football (soccer) excluding special events such as the Olympics or the World Cup. The figures may have dropped somewhat in the last couple of years, but F1 has had a huge international TV following, and that is why Ecclestone has been able to negotiate eye-watering deals with the broadcasters, because most of them know that they will be able to sell high-priced advertising slots (BBC excluded).

[sweetchuk]

Mike, I will bet most of the family china on the fact that no single F1 race - not even Monaco - is watched by anywhere near the number of people who watch Wimbledon as a single event ... not even close.

Yes, over the course of a year, but the above associated discussions involve single events & affordability, i.e. Wimbledon & World Cup finals and it was in that context I replied as I did.

F1 may have had, as you described, huge audiences, back when the excitement and affordability lines were somewhat complimentary to each other and somewhat within the realms of affordability of thousands of families bewitched by sight & sound back then, not the huge disparity that now exists between those two parameters.

I just think it is sad to reflect that a sport founded on the financial support & attendance of bread & butter families has now (and has for some time) been wrenched well & truly out of their reach by a person for whom paying utilities bills or having a loaf of bread being the difference between going hungry & not is a hardship perhaps ever experienced or understood - and for whom raising - or forcing venues to raise - already very expensive ticket prices is just a meaningless exercise in more bank account filling.

Seriously, what can 3 billion buy you at that age, that 2 billion cannot? That's the problem when you lose the common man perspective and accumulate wealth like that .. you always want more & more, and at Bernie's age, there's nothing in the world all that money can buy him to make him happier and sure as hell he cannot spend it all in the time he has left.

Ah well, such is life eh?

[Armco Bender]

I do believe that if you fully research F1 viewing figures

Which were about 10 times the known population of planet earth last time I saw them.....
Hardly anyone watches it,its boring,I only tuned into practice to watch Susie,after she went out it was off to count sheep.

[djinvicta]

As long as you only count them Armco....

[Armco Bender]

You have to remember for half the world F1 is on in the middle of the night.GP"s start here at midnight and go to 1:30am on Monday morning,most people have to go to work on Mondays so the viewing numbers here would be tiny.
Headlines here this morning "Susie Wolf drives F1" and some other drivers went around.

[FAS33]

Daniel Ricciardo will win, cause he's the fastest F1 driver of all time.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by FAS33

Daniel Ricciardo will win, cause he's the fastest F1 driver of all time.

keep the jokes coming!

If the Mercs have problems again, he's the most likely one to do it...

[Lancsbreaker]

Well this thread went OT fairly well, didn't it?

After wettish Free Practice 3 - fingers crossed for a qualifying not sprinkled with Red flags......