Silverstone 'has to get act together' after British GP ticket uproar, admits MD

Sales were suspended a few hours after launching on September 15 and resumed the next day. The majority are now sold out.

A review of the system, including the price bands, has been promised by Pringle, who said he was “shocked” by the level of demand, although he accepts that the website should have handled it.

“I apologise unreservedly,” he said. “It’s really, really frustrating. How can we pride ourselves on giving people a great fan experience when the first part is so suboptimal?”

Pringle told Motor Sport that the ticketing process was run by Secutix, and had been proven in UEFA football tournaments.

“The system should have been able to cope with it,” he said. “It performed extremely well for us last year when we had record demand for tickets but it was nothing like this.

“We had a consistent queue of 50,000 people for prolonged periods of time, despite selling between 8000 and 10,000 tickets per hour. It didn’t come below 50,000 for hours.

“In seven days we achieved a level of ticket sales that took 32 weeks to achieve last year.

“I personally queued for six hours on my browser and didn’t reach the front of the queue. There was also a secondary issue with the payment portal at one point.”

But more than the technical issues, it was the rapidly increasing prices that incensed fans, with many saying that they had abandoned attempts to go to the race as prices soared.

Weekend general admission (GA) tickets incrementally increased in price from £219 to £329, while Sunday tickets saw a similar rise.

“Just wanted 2 Sunday GA tickets for Silverstone – when I got in queue at 11:29 they were £179,” wrote Chlo. “2 and a half hours waiting I get through and they’ve gone up 40 quid. Absolutely not, Spa it is.”

just wanted 2 Sunday GA tickets for silverstone – when I got in queue at 11:29 they were £179. 2 and a half hours waiting I get through and they’ve gone up 40 quid. Absolutely not, Spa it is #silverstone

— Chlo (@chlo1497) September 16, 2022

The dynamic pricing strategy has been employed by Silverstone for decades, but never for an online-only sale with this scale of demand.

Fans will have previously seen the effect in the shape of earlybird offers: a tranche of tickets available at a set price. Once sold, the next set goes on sale at a higher price.

“Because the quantities went so rapidly and scarcity became an issue within hours, and in some cases minutes, we were triggering price bands that we would historically have expected to trigger in weeks or months,” said Pringle.

“We wanted to support regulars by keeping starting ticket price increases significantly below the level of inflation and making it up with ticket sales later in the cycle, but we just rocketed through those early price bands.”

An additional sense of urgency was created earlier in the week when priority access for members of the Silverstone Racing Club, which costs £99, was reintroduced for the first time in several years.

Fans were aware that members would be snapping up tickets at the cheapest price level, which led to thousands refreshing their browsers on the morning that the general sale opened in an attempt to secure tickets.

Among those who lost out were Silverstone’s hardcore supporters, with years of races under their belts, who found themselves beaten to the online checkout by some of F1’s new generation of fans who are, in general, younger, more diverse, and in many cases looking forward to seeing their first live race, thanks to the much-heralded Drive to Survive effect.

It’s F1’s strategy in action: hook spectators on the action — often through the hit Netflix series — and then introduce them to the atmosphere of raceday.

Inevitably, for events that already sell out each year, it means that there are plenty left disappointed.

“Loyal, loyal fans, who we are deeply indebted to for their many years of support, who are used to popping onto the website on day one [of sales] and booking not just the stand but the row and seat they want at the starting price, were utterly shocked to see the level of demand, as were we,” said Pringle.

“We are slightly architects of our own challenges here because more people are interested. Formula 1, under Liberty Media’s ownership, has driven the popularity of the sport.

“The racing’s exciting, the championship went down to the wire last year. It’s not just Netflix, we’ve got three British drivers on the grid and the most popular driver on the grid — Lando Norris — happens to be British.”

It marks a reversal in fortunes: as recently as 2017 the British Grand Prix and the circuit itself were placed in jeopardy when Silverstone’s owner, the British Racing Drivers’ Club activated its break clause with F1. After losing several millions of pounds a year — at an increasing rate — to host the race, it said that its agreement with the series was no longer viable.

Now the circuit has a renegotiated contract and its future is looking secure. “We no longer routinely lose money on the British Grand Prix,” said Pringle. “In fact, we are consistently making money. We pass the profit to the BRDC, which operates as a not-for-profit company, and reinvests it back into the circuit.”

Some of this year’s investment, you might imagine, will be directed towards the ticket platform.

“Customers expect a brand like Silverstone to get its bloody act together,” admitted Pringle.