Ticket pressure for Australian Grand Prix

Tickets go on sale for the Australian Grand Prix on Tuesday, and if you want to go, you’d better be quick because it will sell out again for the Saturday and Sunday, and likely Friday too if corporate sales are any indication.

Which you’d think, if you were the boss of the Australian Grand Prix, would make your life easy… but it doesn’t.

Travis Auld has been in the driver’s seat for a little more than a year now after spending more than two decades inside the world of Australian football, initially in clubland but then with the AFL as the CFO and GM Broadcasting and Clubs. 

Auld’s challenge with the four-wheel race – he also looks at the MotoGP event at Phillip Island in less than a month – has been how to create value without damaging the event. As in, can you get 150,000 people in and out of Albert Park without creating angst. Can you get enough food trucks in, are there enough toilets… the list goes on. 

There is a pre-ballot for tickets this year as with last year. Don’t expect much to be left in the grandstands within a day of going on sale. 

“We had 100,000 people in the queue when we went on sale, and Ticketmaster says that’s pretty much unprecedented demand,” he told AUTO ACTION.

“This year, we sold out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so the focus is now in terms of growing attendance on Thursday. 

“We want to approach it in a couple of ways. We are talking with Supercars about how we can make that better on Thursday and we’re also introducing a concert on a Thursday night.”

Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images for AGPC

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