Friday, July 22, 2011

Brickyard ticket sales bad?

   There have been rumors that ticket sales for next week's Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway were again off-pace from last season, but an internal NASCAR memo obtained by ThatsRacin.com and The Observer seems to confirm the problem.

   In the memo, which was distributed by email on Friday, team public relations representatives were thanked ahead of time for their drivers' participation in a Sprint Cup Series autograph session at the track.

   The memo said, "ticket sales are significantly behind from previous years" at IMS. Since sales have been dramatically down since the 2008 tire problems at the track, another significant decline would appear ominous. 

   The memo goes on to say, the track believed there would be a large walk-up crowd for the July 31 race and hoped the autograph session would be well received by race fans.

5 comments:

  1. The reason I'm not going to the Brickyard 400 this year after attending them all is they are giving away or dropping the price to everyone but they raised mine again. This is a great way to reward someone who has been a long time customer since you have good seats let's make you pay a little more well guess what all 4 of us who have the seats all agreed and said that is it the last straw. By the way the ticket prices are the lowest cost item about the 700 mile trip but that is what did it.

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  2. In an era where tracks are lowering prices and working with hotels to try to accommodate the fans, IMS raised ticket prices. At least for grand stand H. I do like the Brickyard 400; I know it's not the most exciting racing in the series but it is an event filled with prestige just like the Dayton's 500 and that's what makes it fun. If NASCAR chooses to not race here anymore it'll be sad but understandable. I just hope they will understand that I won't go to any of their races either. Too high a price.

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  3. Keith - same thing happened to us. I held 4 seats in the Penthouse E Stand since the first race in 1994. When I saw they increased our seats by $15 to $165 each while lowering other sections, we said enough was enough. It wasn't a matter of affordability, more the principal of the thing to us. I've always supported IMS as it's my home track (50 miles away) and my family has been going there since the 1930's. Wrote a letter to IMS then got calls from those in charge asking "why I didn't renew?". Basically I said their marketing plan wasn't well thought out, attempting to hold their loyal fans hostage thinking we would all renew with no problems, while in reality we were subsiding the lower seat prices. I was also told that after the 2009 Brickyard 400 the premium stands were walked and it was determined to increase prices in these areas. I thought something was up when the 2010 program didn’t have an order application to the 2011 race as had been in all prior years, like IMS didn’t want to stir up controversy until after the race.

    Long gone is the day IMS can hold a race and expect to sell out in a matter of weeks. Got a call two weeks ago asking if I had reconsidered? I said no and the person on the other end said IMS hoped I would return some day and they had heard "lots of complaints".

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  4. Jeff. I think we used to sit next to you. I am still going, I have been to every Brickyard since 1994. I wasn't able to give away for FREE 2 of my $165 Penthouse E tickets.

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  5. Another thing that may not have been thought out very well, NASCAR put the Brickyard 400 on the schedule 3 weeks after the inaugural race at Kentucky Speedway. These tracks are only about 120 miles apart. And they're in an area of the country where most folks can barely afford to go to one race a year. Obviously, most of them decided to go to Kentucky, judging by the amount of traffic and not enough parking space, to where people with tickets had to be turned away. In my opinion, in a just world, Bruton Smith would buy a ticket to the Brickyard for everyone that had a ticket to KY and wasn't able to get in. But that won't happen, 'cause Bruton just cares about the money, not the fans.

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