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  #761  
Old Posted May 12, 2012, 8:03 PM
hookem hookem is offline
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Hopefully they can use the wet days to focus on interior work, since most of the major buildings all have a roof now. The dirt work and asphalt obviously has to wait out the wet times.

Even if it's an overall wet year, there should be a good stretch of dry weather in the hottest summer months. Plus the longer days will help.
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  #762  
Old Posted May 12, 2012, 11:41 PM
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Hopefully they can use the wet days to focus on interior work, since most of the major buildings all have a roof now. The dirt work and asphalt obviously has to wait out the wet times.

Even if it's an overall wet year, there should be a good stretch of dry weather in the hottest summer months. Plus the longer days will help.
i just think it would be very awesome if it rained all throughout the summer. but i can see how it would suck for the f1 tracks if the rain continues. quite the dilemma austin's got going... but it's kinda a good dilemma i think.
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  #763  
Old Posted May 13, 2012, 12:05 AM
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I just finished a survey that the COTA folks emailed me. It sounded like they are only selling 3 day passes with no single day tickets. And the pricing questions made it seem like the 3 day General Admission pass was going to be priced between $150-$200. And it was stated that all tickets come with free transportation to and from downtown. Seemed pretty reasonable.
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  #764  
Old Posted May 13, 2012, 6:39 AM
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  #765  
Old Posted May 13, 2012, 11:31 PM
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Originally Posted by East7thStreet View Post
I just finished a survey that the COTA folks emailed me. It sounded like they are only selling 3 day passes with no single day tickets. And the pricing questions made it seem like the 3 day General Admission pass was going to be priced between $150-$200. And it was stated that all tickets come with free transportation to and from downtown. Seemed pretty reasonable.
Reports from many people taking the survey show the 3-day GA ticket with prices of $150, $200, $300, $400, and $600.
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  #766  
Old Posted May 13, 2012, 11:32 PM
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Thanks LJ. That shot is from our FB page, Friends of Formula 1 Austin Texas.
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  #767  
Old Posted May 14, 2012, 2:25 AM
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I don't know about other races, and what is normal, but those prices seem quite low to me for 3 days.
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  #768  
Old Posted May 14, 2012, 3:24 AM
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I don't know about other races, and what is normal, but those prices seem quite low to me for 3 days.
Don't confuse General Admission with Gramdstand and Premium Seating. General Admission will be you bringing a picnic blanket and sitting on an embankment to watch the race, what I call BYOC (bring your own chairs).
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  #769  
Old Posted May 14, 2012, 4:47 AM
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That seems cheep to me. Most music festivals are 'BYOC' only they are usually much more expensive. Like ACL fest is the cheapest major event and it is $200 for 3 days, and it is GA. Glastonbury was £195 for 4 days (~$300). Roskilde was €240 (~$300). Coachella was over $300 for 3 days if you were very lucky. All of those are all also very heavily sponsored events.

Those are all large events with 80,000 to 120,000 people. I know event production very well, but not racing. So I don't know the cost differences. But I imagine building that track is not cheap, and I doubt the track would be getting any of the TV revenue.
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  #770  
Old Posted May 14, 2012, 5:23 AM
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I consider $300 or less for 3 days fairly reasonable also. But I'm definitely in the minority, the general consensus on the racing forums is that anything over $150 for 3 days of GA spells certain doom for the Austin race. I believe the issue is that many fans think they are being taken advantage of if CoTA charges more than older, government supported F1 venues in other countries. Plus the PSL sales leave a bad taste with the fans, when there are no guarantees about how long F1 will stay or what other series will come.

That last part I can understand. But the low GA ticket prices they expect are unrealistic, I think. F1 is like the Olympics compared to a music festival or a UT football game. Can't see it being any cheaper than either of those.
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  #771  
Old Posted May 14, 2012, 4:12 PM
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Originally Posted by BevoLJ View Post
That seems cheep to me. Most music festivals are 'BYOC' only they are usually much more expensive. Like ACL fest is the cheapest major event and it is $200 for 3 days, and it is GA. Glastonbury was £195 for 4 days (~$300). Roskilde was €240 (~$300). Coachella was over $300 for 3 days if you were very lucky. All of those are all also very heavily sponsored events.

Those are all large events with 80,000 to 120,000 people. I know event production very well, but not racing. So I don't know the cost differences. But I imagine building that track is not cheap, and I doubt the track would be getting any of the TV revenue.
$300-600 for a 3-day GA seat on the grass seems quite cheap to you?

Compare it other racing events and you'll find that's not the case at all.


Certainly building the track is not cheap, but consumers have never worried about the cost of production. They worry about the cost to them and whether the product fits their wants and needs...as they should.
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Last edited by turn1; May 14, 2012 at 4:46 PM.
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  #772  
Old Posted May 14, 2012, 4:40 PM
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I consider $300 or less for 3 days fairly reasonable also. But I'm definitely in the minority, the general consensus on the racing forums is that anything over $150 for 3 days of GA spells certain doom for the Austin race. I believe the issue is that many fans think they are being taken advantage of if CoTA charges more than older, government supported F1 venues in other countries. Plus the PSL sales leave a bad taste with the fans, when there are no guarantees about how long F1 will stay or what other series will come.

That last part I can understand. But the low GA ticket prices they expect are unrealistic, I think. F1 is like the Olympics compared to a music festival or a UT football game. Can't see it being any cheaper than either of those.
OK, let's not go crazy now. I'm as big an F1 fan as anyone here, and while F1 is huge, it's NOT like the Olympics compared to ACL, SxSW, or a UT football game.

- UT football: $100K people x 1 day...~100K attendance
- ACL: 75K people x 3 days...~225K attendance
- SXSW: 200-250K people attending for various lengths of stay over 10 days. Harder to quantify than the others.
- F1: ~300K attendance over 3 days

- Olympics: attendance varies, but is measured in the millions over a period of 2 weeks or so.

While F1 will be bigger for 3 days than UT football is for 1 day, the 2 are actually very comparable in 1-day attendance. ACL & F1 are comparable over 3 days, and SXSW is huge. The Olympics blows all of these out of the water.


As for government support, don't forget that while COTA construction itself isn't government supported, the business model of the event itself is reliant upon government support. Indeed, without government support, it will fail.

Also, in re: the "low GA prices" we expect...$150 for a 3-day GA seat is not on the low end, even for F1. Not even close.

Of the 18 GPs I found with 3-day ticket prices, 13 of those were priced between $117 and $189. The avg price of those was $153. The outliers were GPs with 3-day GA prices of $21 & $60 on the low end and $283, $295, & $360 on the high end.

Some people are suggesting that a $300 3-Day GA ticket price is in line with other GPs or even on the inexpensive side. In the above set of prices, $300 would be an outlier and would be the 2nd most expensive 3-day GA ticket on the F1 calendar.
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Last edited by turn1; May 15, 2012 at 2:14 AM.
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  #773  
Old Posted May 14, 2012, 5:08 PM
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They're going to have to build up "local" demand to maintain higher prices for tickets.
American racing fans are giving Nascar a hard time over boring racing as is. F1 sold just 80,000 tickets in Barcelona last weekend. If TMS sold just 80,000 tickets for a Nascar Cup race, the stands would be half full.

F1 with much less passing is going to be considered even more boring with follow the leader racing. Just look at last weekend's F1 race in Spain. The fastest car started last because of a rules infraction penalty during qualifying. Using a two stop instead of a three stop pit strategy, was only able to pass 16 cars for position over 66 laps. Most of those passes wasn't done on the track, 5 of the 16 cars didn't finish the race, dropping out of the race by lap 37, and passed several cars when they took an additional pit stop. Without actually counting how many passes he made on the track, I estimate he only had to make 8 or so over 66 laps, averaging 8 laps per position pass.

Hype will only go sell so much, a product has to placed in front of the race fans, and that product is racing. There's a reason both IRL and Nascar race on oval tracks, and that the races on ovals have far higher attendance and purses.

Last edited by electricron; May 14, 2012 at 5:31 PM.
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  #774  
Old Posted May 14, 2012, 5:57 PM
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$300-600 for a 3-day GA seat on the grass seems quite cheap to you?
It is now $300-$600 for 3 day GA? Is it $150, $300 or $600?
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  #775  
Old Posted May 15, 2012, 1:58 AM
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Originally Posted by BevoLJ View Post
It is now $300-$600 for 3 day GA?
No, it was a typo. My bad.
Meant to type $150-600, as even $150 is not "cheap" for F1 3-day GA. It's average.

Quote:
Is it $150, $300 or $600?
In the survey, we've seen 3-day GA prices of $150, $200, $300, $400, & $600
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  #776  
Old Posted May 15, 2012, 4:30 AM
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I just added 32 new COTA construction photos to the 21 my buddy added earlier today.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater


Samples:


















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  #777  
Old Posted May 15, 2012, 1:21 PM
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I'm wishing the best for COTA, and I know they keep saying construction is on schedule. But how in the hell will they be able to finish on time? They have been working 20 hour days at least six days a week for a while now.
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  #778  
Old Posted May 15, 2012, 3:36 PM
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After weeks of delays, the Travis County Commissioners Court is set to talk about COTA roads, their Trafic and Public Safety plans, and more:

http://kutnews.org/post/am-update-ro...8-ZvfA.twitter
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  #779  
Old Posted May 15, 2012, 4:16 PM
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It's going to be close, but I have faith in COTA finishing on time.
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  #780  
Old Posted May 16, 2012, 10:17 PM
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Not much going on out at the track today due to the very wet weather Monday night and Tuesday. Lost most of last week and the last two days. Here's the extent of the action yesterday, as one guy on a loader attempted to direct rainwater to a pump out in the chronically wet low spot between turns 10 & 11.

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Last edited by turn1; May 16, 2012 at 10:27 PM.
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