Miami GP boss defends high F1 ticket prices
Miami Grand Prix chief Tom Garfinkel has defended the Formula 1 race's extremely high ticket prices, saying it is driven by how much demand there is for the event.
The first-ever Miami GP around the Miami Dolphins' Hard Rock Stadium has been the most hyped up new F1 race in years and that has also been reflected in the ticket prices.
Priced at $640 for the cheapest grandstand tickets, the second most expensive seats on the F1 calendar behind Monaco, sold out on the first day of release.
Fans wanting to access the general admission area had to fork out from $300 for Friday up to $500 for race day, which is only compounded by inflated prices at the many food and drinks concessions.
The festival style event, which is attracting interest from fans and sponsors around the world and sold out at a 240,000 capacity across three days, is further proof that the championship has made a huge splash in the US. But its Super Bowl-like pulling power has also meant that it, much like the NFL final, has priced most people out of the market.
When asked about the criticism on the ticket prices, Miami GP boss Garfinkel, who also manages the Dolphins and the Hard Rock Stadium venue, said supply and demand has dictated what the ticket price should be.
"Well, it's partly the scarcity and supply and demand," Garfinkel said. "I mean, we never really did a public on-sale and we had so much demand that ticket prices were partly a function of that."
Esteban Ocon, Alpine A522, Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari F1-75
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Garfinkel insisted the general admission tickets, which Miami calls campus passes, offer good value for money given that no expense was spared to turn the South Florida venue into a semi-theme park, featuring a beach club, fan zones and live concerts throughout the weekend.
"I think one thing we didn't do a very good job [with] - we can do a better job of in the future - is educating people about what a campus pass is," he explained.
"For $300 on a Friday, you can come out and experience the race track. There's a lot of different things with campus passes. There is so much to experience here. It's not a typical grounds pass. You can see a lot of different parts of the race track. There's a lot of different things to do.
"And then on the high end, yeah, we have some luxury experiences where the tickets are very expensive. So some of it was a function of supply and demand. But hopefully, we'll deliver on that experience for the people that bought the tickets."
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