F1: Las Vegas GP nearing sellout already – 105,000 each day

–by Mark Cipolloni–

The most expensive F1 race ever, in terms of ticket cost – the Las Vegas GP – is nearly sold out, according to Las Vegas Grand Prix CEO Renee Wilm.

It will be the one race each year race fans will want to attend, but many cannot afford.  Ticket revenue will dwarf the Indy 500, Daytona 500, 24 Hours of LeMans and the NFL Super Bowl.

“We are experiencing incredible demand,” Wilm told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “We are so thankful to our fans for being so excited and waiting online for us to hit the button to put it all on sale.”

There will be a third limited batch of tickets yet to be put up for sale.

Although a large portion of the tickers are grandstand seats (60,000), the VIP experience is also big with up to 40,000 hospitality seats available for the race, according to Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

When you average in the cost of the grandstand tickets (ranging from $1,500 to $2,500) with the cost of the hospitality seats (Starting at $8,000 and going up to $25,000) the average revenue per 105,000 3-day tickets is estimated to be $6,975 (see table below). That includes a limited number of General Admission tickets @$500 that sold out in minutes.

In fact, Greg Maffei, CEO of F1 parent company Liberty Media, said the Las Vegas Grand Prix will be the biggest race in terms of VIP offerings.

“This will be by far the biggest race in terms of revenue, VIP experiences, everything about this will be at the top,” Maffei said. “It will be the paragon for Formula One.”

Among those set to fill the luxury spaces offered during the race are an expected who’s who list of celebrities, according to Formula One CEO Stefano Domencali.

“It’s going to be big, that’s no doubt,” Domencali said. “I’ve already seen the list of people who want to come, and that will be just impressive.”

The paddock suites and club spaces that will be located on the top two floors of the 300,000-square-foot-facility will host between 7,500-8,000 ticket holders each day, according to Hill. The grandstand being built across from the paddock will hold 27,000 total fans each day @$2,500 each, with a skybox slated to be located at the top of the grandstand that will house between 5,000-10,000 fans each day @$10,000 each, Hill noted.

Ticket resales on Stubhub are going for about 50% to 100% over face value, in some case more. For example – General Admission tickets that originally sold for $500 are selling for $1,700 to $5,700 on Stub Hub.

On Koval Lane high-end hospitality areas will line the street, one geared toward those looking for a Las Vegas club experience and those geared toward the hardcore racing fan.

Aside from those spaces, other resorts such as the Bellagio and Mirage will offer their own experiences. Grandstands built in front of other resorts will account for an additional 10,000-15,000 tickets each day.

“We just had people in Europe and they reported back that everybody that came up to our booth in Berlin wanted to talk about Formula One being in Las Vegas,” Hill said. “The excitement is great. It’s going to be a sold-out crowd, we know that. It’s going to be a fantastic event.”

The excitement is shared among current F1 and former drivers, Maffei added.

“The buzz is huge,” Maffei said. “We’ve had video of them (current drivers) talking about their excitement for Las Vegas. We had one driver who retired say, ‘If I’d known Vegas was coming I would have stayed another year.’ There’s a lot of excitement among the drivers as well as the whole racing community.”

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