Las Vegas GP Faces Major Ticketing Problem As D-Day Draws Near And F1 Grandstands Remain Empty

The F1 authorities have been hard at work in trying to promote the sport in America after seeing an incredible response from the audience to Netflix’s Drive to Survive. With two American races already on the calendar, a third is about to join the list as the Las Vegas GP nears its inaugural race. While it was once a much-anticipated spectacle, the charm of the race is quickly dying down, and most of it has to do with the skyrocketing ticket prices.

The high prices have finally affected the authorities as thousands of tickets remain unsold. Given the same, the prices are starting to diminish, with the highest markdown being well over 60 percent. Additionally, the hotels’ surge prices have also taken a hit, as reported in a tweet on X by Joe Pompliano.

 

The prices have gone down owing mainly to three factors. First is the drop in popularity of the sport after the fifth season of Drive to Survive. The second aspect is the fact that the race for the championship is over, and the winner of the Las Vegas GP is all but certain. Thirdly, it was the sky-high prices of the tickets that swayed people away from even thinking about making the purchase.

With Grandstand ticket prices being over four times the cost of the same tickets in Spa Francorchamps for the Belgian GP, not many people can afford to spend more than $2500 on a single ticket. As such, nearly 10,000 tickets remain unsold, with resellers and F1 authorities looking at a major loss.

Resellers running haywire to sell Las Vegas GP tickets

For long, resellers have swept in to hoard all the tickets before an F1 Grand Prix, which they then sell at huge premiums, leading to people shelling out extra money for those tickets. However, the Las Vegas GP has become a major cause for concern for these sellers, as no one is willing to buy the tickets at their retail price. Looking at a loss of thousands, they now have a decision to make and sell the tickets for whatever they can get for them.

As such, the sellers have turned to third-party websites such as StubHub to get them to sell. Operating on a similar basis, the website charges a premium for tickets, but this won’t be the case this time around. Another platform, Ticketmaster, is also an option for resellers, but the website comes with a limitation over how low a seller can price their item. It is a move made by racing authorities to keep the prices high, but it doesn’t look like any good will come from the same.

The price difference between a verified reseller such as Ticketmaster (TM) and a third-party reseller like Stubhub (SH) is already staggering. The Saturday-only tickets for the PG2 104 Grandstand row 24 cost $1594 on TM while the same are available for $932 on SH, indicating a discount of 42%. Meanwhile, the tickets for row 18 of the same Grandstand cost $1772 on TM and $976 on SH. With ticket prices plummeting, it is only a matter of time before the prices reach the sub-5 or $600 mark, making it a much more affordable deal for those looking to watch the race from the stands.