Drivers call for cuts in ticket prices
#1
06-08-2009, 08:44 PM
Drivers call for cuts in ticket prices
Formula One news: Drivers call for cuts in ticket prices - GPUpdate.net Formula One
Crowd attendances were down significantly for the Turkish Grand Prix last weekend. Although the inaugural race of 2005 may have caused hour-long traffic jams on local roads, Istanbul Park was filled to just under 28 percent of its full capacity in 2009, with sales for three-day tickets having plummeted dramatically.
With a capability of holding 130,000 people, the Istanbul venue sold just 36,000 full weekend tickets in 2009, the lowest of the circuit's five-year F1 history; infact, the low led organisers to covering a number of the brightly covered grandstands with black fabric in order to mask the low attendances in the background of television pictures.
"There was no one here," Red Bull's Mark Webber, who finished second, said to Reuters after the Grand Prix. "There were a lot of people that tried to come in today but obviously it's not that cheap, and things like that, but we should have let them in for free at the end - it would have been nice for the show to let people in; I'm sure there's a lot of people that would want to come to the Turkish Grand Prix but can't afford to because it's very expensive."
The Spanish Grand Prix also experienced a downfall in attendances this year, not helped by the drop in form of Fernando Alonso and the general economic slump; a three-day main grandstand ticket was the most expensive, coming in at €533 (£467 approx.) if paying on the gate. "We have to make it cheaper," Ferrari's Felipe Massa continued of general prices for F1 tickets. "We prefer to race at a track with cheaper tickets but a lot of people inside, because if they put the prices of the tickets down it would be full.
"That is also one of the issues we have - that it is too expensive; if you go in normal families and you need to spend €1000 for yourself and your two kids, you think about what to do and you say 'I prefer to watch on television' - so for me it is clear." Webber added: "I think when you come here and you see in the city that there are massive fans around, then you come here (to the circuit) and see that there is nobody, you know that it is just too expensive."
Crowd attendances were down significantly for the Turkish Grand Prix last weekend. Although the inaugural race of 2005 may have caused hour-long traffic jams on local roads, Istanbul Park was filled to just under 28 percent of its full capacity in 2009, with sales for three-day tickets having plummeted dramatically.
With a capability of holding 130,000 people, the Istanbul venue sold just 36,000 full weekend tickets in 2009, the lowest of the circuit's five-year F1 history; infact, the low led organisers to covering a number of the brightly covered grandstands with black fabric in order to mask the low attendances in the background of television pictures.
"There was no one here," Red Bull's Mark Webber, who finished second, said to Reuters after the Grand Prix. "There were a lot of people that tried to come in today but obviously it's not that cheap, and things like that, but we should have let them in for free at the end - it would have been nice for the show to let people in; I'm sure there's a lot of people that would want to come to the Turkish Grand Prix but can't afford to because it's very expensive."
The Spanish Grand Prix also experienced a downfall in attendances this year, not helped by the drop in form of Fernando Alonso and the general economic slump; a three-day main grandstand ticket was the most expensive, coming in at €533 (£467 approx.) if paying on the gate. "We have to make it cheaper," Ferrari's Felipe Massa continued of general prices for F1 tickets. "We prefer to race at a track with cheaper tickets but a lot of people inside, because if they put the prices of the tickets down it would be full.
"That is also one of the issues we have - that it is too expensive; if you go in normal families and you need to spend €1000 for yourself and your two kids, you think about what to do and you say 'I prefer to watch on television' - so for me it is clear." Webber added: "I think when you come here and you see in the city that there are massive fans around, then you come here (to the circuit) and see that there is nobody, you know that it is just too expensive."
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