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Tickets for the March 14-16 event go on public sale tomorrow after pre-sales opened last week.
This year’s event attracted a record 452,055 fans across the four days of track action, with the latter three days a sell-out.
Capacity within Albert Park was capped at around 130,000 primarily due to ingress and egress considerations.
Plans are in place to increase that capacity longer term with a new train station set to open in 2026.
That creates another avenue for fans to arrive and depart the venue, easing some of the organisers’ current concerns about spectator movement.
Before then, capacity will increase slightly in 2025.
Next year’s Australian Grand Prix will be the first under a new contract.
While precise figures are unknown, it’s estimated that it will rise from around AUD $37 million to around AUD $45 million annually.
“The cost of putting on a major event is increasing,” Australian Grand Prix Corporation CEO Travis Auld admitted to Speedcafe.
“That’s not just the cost of Formula 1 and their fee, everything; the cost to build it, the cost to run it.
“Other major events, like the Australian Open, are going to be experiencing the same thing.
“It’s that balance between funding that through price increases and finding other ways to generate revenue.
“So we have said that we’d like to be able to satisfy more of the demand or increase the number of people each day that won’t have an expensive experience.
“And we’re very mindful of affordability and making the vendors as accessible as we can,” he added.
“So there’s a lot of demand, it’s expensive to put on, but I don’t want the burden of that to fall on those attending.”
The current capacity limit is self-imposed though Auld, like his predecessor Andrew Westacott, is mindful of increasing the figure and the impact that has on the fan experience.
Part of addressing that is looking at ways to ease movement around the circuit while maintaining access to food, drinks, and amenities.
“We’re trying to work out, how do we invest in more overpasses, more pontoons, and so the flow within the track is better,” Auld confirmed
“At the same time as then working out what we can do within the venue to help drive revenue. That’s a big part of our focus right now.
“We think we can get some more [spectators] in this coming year, but it’ll be done in a conservative way because part of the magic is the ability to join the broad festival that comes with the event.”
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Organisers expect the three days of F1 track action to sell out and hope for an uptick in Thursday attendance, when Supercars headlines proceedings.
Since the remaining three days are already at capacity, it offers the greatest growth potential in terms of spectator numbers aside from increasing capacity.
Last year, many fans expressed disappointment over ticketing issues, and demand for tickets has already exceeded 2023 levels.
The Australian Grand Prix Corporation partners with Ticketmaster, primarily owned by Liberty Media, which also holds F1’s commercial rights.
“The reality is, we’ve got 100,000 people in the queue when we went on sale [in 2023], so that’s particularly unprecedented in the major event space,” Auld noted.
“It’s always going to be challenging.
“The system worked okay, it’s just processing that amount of tickets at the time means that not everyone’s going to get a ticket.
“That’s not a fault of the system, that’s just we’ve got more people who want to buy tickets than we’ve got tickets.
“We’ll keep working on the process but, again, I think there’s going to be significant demand.”
Ticketmaster has faced heavy criticism, together with rival Ticketek, for not innovating, given their strong market position.
In the United States, Ticketmaster is the subject of a Department of Justice-initiated lawsuit over claims of anti-competitive behaviour.
Liberty Media is its largest shareholder, owning a 31 percent stake in the organisation, and earns a commission off sales through the Ticketmaster platform.
Liberty Media is ultimately the recipient of the Australian Grand Prix’s hosting fees, too.
“The Grand Prix has had the relationship [with Ticketmaster] for a number of years, that preceded the relationship that Liberty’s had,” Auld explained.
“Even if in that case, there has been a tender process, there’s been integrity around that.
“We’re very mindful, not just for the example with Liberty, but in any case, we are an organisation that is funded by taxpayers’ money, and so it’s important that there’s the right probity around these decisions.
“We work closely with Ticketmaster, and I’ve had relationships with both ticket providers over my sporting career,” Auld added when asked about Ticketmaster’s legal predicament in the United States.
“We do push them a lot in terms of investing in innovation that aligns with where you want to go.
“We try to look two or three years out, and they’re a good partner, they accept that [and] they’re investing where we want them to invest.”
A major criticism of last year’s ticket sales was the on-demand pricing, viewed as price gouging in light of anti-scalping laws in Victoria, which limit resale markups to 10 percent.
Those laws do not apply to the Australian Grand Prix Corporation given it is the event promoted and Auld confirmed that on-demand sales will remain in place this year.
“We continue to try and manage that in a way that recognises the popularity of the event,” Auld argued.
“We are still, relative to the number of events – including those in Australia, outside Australia – probably at the conservative end of pricing.
“They’re not going to agree with that, but the benchmark, that’s where it’s at.
“But that’s what we want it to be.
“As I say, there’ll be a lot of demand, so that’ll be reflected through pricing, but it’s exactly the same process as last year.”
An investigation conducted by Speedcafe into ticket pricing in 2023 revealed the Australian Grand Prix was the eighth most expensive event of the season, on par with the Dutch and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix, and slightly more than Singapore.
However, it was the only event that offered a four-day experience and an extensive support program.
Next year’s Australian Grand Prix will see four support categories; Formula 2, Formula 3, Supercars, and Porsche Carrera Cup.
