Squeezing Cash Out of Cycling Fans
The Guardian news site reports that the Olympic organisers wants to charge fans coming to the Box Hill area to see the Road Race.
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The race is close to City, so greed is good. Give me more now.
3 months ago
Uphill
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Box Hill is a weird one
Protected site for environmental reasons managed by National Trust. Taken huge amount of effort to get the fan numbers up from 3000+ to 15000. And always bound to be ticketed regardless. Question is the price of the ticket.
Know it is where I would prefer to be both days from the minute the course was announced, and many would probably feel the same. And have to admit would probably pay (up to a certain amount) so am part of the “captive audience” LOCOG can aim at.
Infinitely preferable if tickets free. There is a lot of the Olympics that many many people can’t get to see as it is through either cost or over-demand. Would be infinitely better PR to give them away.
Do they need to charge people?
This is not a race about to go down the drain because of lack of funding. Projected revenue @£10/person is £150000. That looks like peanuts in the overall scheme of things and will do more harm than good.
I don't understand Box Hill as the climb at all, given the protected species etc!
Can understand limiting numbers, but it’s much more in the spirit of cycling to offer them in a free ballot (esp given the rumoured huge proportion of Olympic tickets in the velodrome etc that are corporate, rather than fans…)
Aka Pigeons!
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 18, 2012 1:49 PM EST up reply actions
I just hope they don't put the cycling.tv guys in charge of things.
They will cordon off the whole area to keep out everyone who’s trying to watch for free from the side of the road, and put all the paying punters in fancy grandstand seating at the summit. Then 15 minutes before the race comes through the grandstand will collapse into a disused mineshaft.
hehe.
expanding on the idea: 500-1000 VIP tickets to some fancy setup somewhere will generate just as much cash as general entrance fees for 15000 people. Everybody will probably feel better except the National Trust.
Heh, or the screens turn off!
Aka Pigeons!
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 18, 2012 1:50 PM EST up reply actions
When the final accounting of the UK Olympics is done the losses will be appalling – how they increased their budget by literally £Billions seconds after winning the bid, etc. How such a huge televised event could be allowed to be run at a loss amazes me.
Charging people for Box Hill – tiny peanuts in the greater budget – may hint at their desperation.
/grouchy
moo
National Trust
Have more than doubled their charges for running sportives on what is a private road. Everyone’s out to ‘make a buck’ out of the Olympics.
The biggest problem with the race is the route itself. It’s dull, dull, dull, I ride that way most weekends and there are far better combination of routes and climbs which would have avoided the ‘Box Hill chaos’. The blame lies with the donkey who drew up the course.
Rafa's on peds
Wasn't that donkey under a "how can we make Cav win" mandate?
rather than “what would suit Emma Pooley?” (grumble grumble!)
Aka Pigeons!
by Sarah Connolly on Feb 18, 2012 1:51 PM EST up reply actions
donkey..........
nope I don’t think so really because holding a WC track event on the velodrome was certainly against the national interest. also 9 times up Box Hill bearing in mind it’s narrow and potentially fast is IMO harder than the Poggio. certainly not as obvious as Cipo’s WC course.
even it is was how can Cav win course, it could have been:-
a, more interesting
b, less contraversial
c, free – one of my favourite words ;)
Rafa's on peds
Changing tack
Are we PDC’ers organising something for the road race? Meeting up somewhere, watching a few laps etc before retiring somewhere to watch the finale. There’s loads of good pubs, bike shops etc that will have it on.
You can even ride back to mine in Battersea, we can leave Broerie on my rollers in the corner too!
Rafa's on peds
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