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A year ago, perhaps the clearest signs of the anticipation surrounding the Las Vegas Grand Prix were the eye-popping ticket prices, with initial grandstand seats typically selling for $2,000 to $2,500.
Fast-forward to race week, and those tickets can be had for less than $1,000, with get-in pricing briefly hovering around $800.
Extending a market freefall that has been many days in the making, resale prices for this week’s qualifying races and the Saturday race itself have plunged by roughly half just in the last month, according to ticket marketplace TickPick.
“It was a difficult decision on go-to-market pricing, but the public has spoken this year,” said Brett Goldberg, TickPick CEO.
Despite prior predictions by F1 of a sellout, tickets also remain freely available on the primary market, in part reflecting how seven-figure corporate hospitality packages were faring far better than regular tickets in many instances.
Get-in pricing five weeks ago:
- Friday – $825
- Saturday – $1,645
Get-in pricing now:
- Friday – $276
- Saturday – $995
“The electric atmosphere under the neon glow of the Vegas Strip is experiencing a market cool-down,” wrote Vincenzo Landino in the F1 newsletter “The Qualifier.”
Contributing Factors
The diminishing interest in attending the highly touted event is owed to several factors.
Perhaps most saliently for racing fans, this season’s championship has long since been clinched, with Max Verstappen having won 15 of the last 16 races, in turn removing any competitive drama.
Temperatures for the 10 p.m. PT race are no longer expected to challenge F1’s lowest-ever mark of 41 degrees Fahrenheit at a Montreal race in 1978, and should stay at least a few degrees above that mark. But the late-night viewing will still be chilly by local standards.
Many Las Vegas-area residents are also feeling ire toward the race after many months of traffic headaches and other local inconvenience related to race-related repaving and track construction.
