How do we increase the gate at meetings

[Tim Falce]

I didn't mean to be negative but maybe a sign on the side of the M20 and M25 would be better or at least some form of advertising in one of the adjacent fields.

[Rod Birley]

A bit like "Diggerlands" advert just through the Dartford Tunnel. Yes, we all know it can be done.

[BillyT]

I think JP wiil make some good changes to Brands, we'll just have to wait. I definatly agree about the signs.

[rdjones]

This is a very interesting topic. Now I remember going to Rockingham about 18 months ago for the F3/GT meeting and they charged a £1 to get in and there was 44,000 + people there so cheap ticket prices work.

I also think they should go a give out free tickets to the schools, this works I have given the example of this before but in Sheffield there is an Ice Hockey team called the Sheffield Steelers, when they first start about 15 years ago they went round the schools and gave away free tickets to the kids and the parents paid something like £5 to get in. 15 years later the Steelers still get crowds of around 6,000 because the people saw what they liked came back time after time.

I have done a bit of Rallying over the winter and last weekend I was out on the Riponian Stages in North Yorkshire, they charged £5 car to park and the 2 stages that I went to where packed. I would also like say that there was very little in the way of promotion of the event. Next weekend is the Kall Kwik Rally again in North Yorkshire and again I expect there to be a good crowd.

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by rdjones

This is a very interesting topic. Now I remember going to Rockingham about 18 months ago for the F3/GT meeting and they charged a £1 to get in and there was 44,000 + people there so cheap ticket prices work.

Not really a good example. All the tickets and promotional work (including TV ads) were paid for by SEAT. The £1 fee went to the ticket agency for handling the mailout. It may have prompted a few extra fans but I suspect most of the families were there because of the Sugarbabe concert, and are unlikely to return just for the racing.

Take away SEAT's blank cheque and it would have been the usual 3 men and a dog in the stands.

[BillyT]

The halfords promotion at the last BTCC round was good but i dont know if that what really drew the fans in.

[pitcrew]

its kids we need to get interested into motorsport!! make merchandise cheeper, collectable for little kids, like nascar is in america! with a better build up to the rounds and an introduction to the drivers, (hopefully they will have some personallity too) then maybe more interest will come from these simple ideas. theres a lack of promotion which makes people unaware of whats going on, ie adverts in the local newspapers giving infomation of dates and events etc?! motorsport in general needs to make more of an effort to attract new fans if it is to continue growth in this country.

[MikeHoyer]

Originally Posted by redshoes

Take away SEAT's blank cheque and it would have been the usual 3 men and a dog in the stands.

Can you take dogs into the track?

[HiRich]

Originally Posted by redshoes

Not really a good example. All the tickets and promotional work (including TV ads) were paid for by SEAT. The £1 fee went to the ticket agency for handling the mailout. It may have prompted a few extra fans but I suspect most of the families were there because of the Sugarbabe concert, and are unlikely to return just for the racing.

Take away SEAT's blank cheque and it would have been the usual 3 men and a dog in the stands.

The bottom line though (ie the numbers) does add up. Last year I went to one of the Days of Thunder events on a fact finding mission.
- Stated crowd of 27,000, with no known subsidy
- An average ticket price of around £20 (and I think that's very conservative)
- Quite a few hospitality boxes were in use, perhaps half
Certainly a lot of the teenagers were primarily there for the concert. But the parents and rest of the kids hadn't paid the extra price. Most of the crowd did watch the four races. Everyone I saw clearly enjoyed temselves. At race time, the stands were full. The crowd was a wide mix, from NASCAR fans, through to the 'there for the music' and 'there because the kids made me'.

Additional features put on were:
- A cavalcade of TVRs (who came in useful to clear the final dew from the track)
- On-track display - donuts, wheelies, etc.
- A decent funfair, doing healthy business
- A reasonable smattering of stalls. Nothing spectacular, just toys, models, books, posters.
- Decent selection of food and drink options (better than most I've seen, in breadth if not quality)
The crowd may have been chavscum almost to a man (and bare-midriffed girl), but on-site spend was massive. Easily £10, quite possibly £25 or more). Now I don't know the franchise deal that the circuit offers stallholders, but this would have delivered a healthy income. The driving chool/driving experience shop was doing healthy business all day (and there was a single-seater experience event running on the infield circuit through the day, squeezing the last bit of cash out of the day!)

The impression I got was that a lot of these people would be more than happy to return. So not only do you make a very useful operating profit on the day (which I covered earlier), but repeat business.

I appreciate that ordinary Club meetings can't put on a similarly sized show, but there are many lessons to be learned.

On the topic of a roadside display, does anyone remember the cinema frontages from the '70s? Like a gigantic pitboard set. New letters can be run off by an in-house designer with a decent printer. Add a large-format printer (in-house or bureau), and you can rattle off custom posters. Add an A4 leaflet dispenser, so people can pull up and grab more information. just make sure someone pops out every morning to check the dispensers full and display details are correct. Sorted. Miniscule costs, means only a marginal increase in gate will payback. It's hardly rocket science, or is it?

[JohnMiller]

Interesting comments there HiRich. 'Thunder Sundays at the Rock' may not actually do that much to attract the hardcore motorsports, ticket buying spectator (do they really exist?) but they certainly do attract the 'man in the street' far more than any other Uk motorpsort I am aware of, with obvious exceptions.

[BillyT]

[QUOTE=JohnMiller] hardcore motorsports, ticket buying spectator (do they really exist?) QUOTE]


Yes they do. Try having a look at the 10 people watching FPA at a soaked Brands Hatch on a freezing day in march.

[topwelshman]

But if you can get the man in the street interested he might bring his family/friends and they mihgt be interested, we need more people to watch our sport and to do that we need to make our sport worth wathcing in the 1st place

[gixxer]

It all depends what your taste is wether its the mindless crash and smash of bangers[but the kids love it] or the usual finesse of or boring wings and slicks[which they can be]you just need a mixture to keep everybody happy,thje closest to that is the VR6 and supersilhouette [or hotrods] mixture provided good racing on a long circuit programme and gave the oval fans a taste of something they are used to!

[HiRich]

Well somone buys MSV season tickets!

Realistically, we're not going to develop the slavish following that other team sports can create (football, rugby for starters), but we can set realistic targets. I would suggest that the 'average' punter (some interest in cars or racing) could be tempted out 4-8 times per season (including major events). I reckon most normal people have that number of weekends where they can't think of anything to do.

Guinness marketing uses a 'ladder of involvement' system that covers stages such as Ignorant, Reject, Interested, Favour, Exclusive. Activities are then tailored to suit each group. There are a lot of similarities. Notably if one person in a group is a Guinness drinker, gradually others will try it and move up the ladder. If none of the group drink Guinness, the whole grooup is very hard to convert. In other words existing Guinness drinkers are the best marketing for the drink (far better at actual conversion than the advertising, but that's a whole other story).
Applying this idea, our 4-8 is Favour. A few ideas then develop:
- As TopWelshman says, these people will recruit others - the classic "anyone else fancy going to Cadwell tomorrow?"
- If you've got these people up to this level, they are prime targets for "If you're coming that often, have you considered becoming a marshal?"
Both issues are extremely cheap marketing methods. There are all sorts of mechanics for rewarding/incentivising the recruiters and recruitees which are well proven to build repeat business and loyalty. In the second case (which is moving our Favours to Exclusives), can you think of a more cost-effective way of identifying, targetting and converting potential marshals?

[redshoes]

Re Days of Thunder - Last time I checked it was closer to £15 entry or £12 in advance. I assume that 27,000 includes under-16’s who would have got in for free. That’s going to make quite a big impact on your profitability calculations. I accept that the format works for Rockingham but I’m not sure how transferable it is elsewhere. During the PowerTour days Silverstone tried holding a post-race concert with only limited success, then again perhaps the Bootleg Beatles and Blues Brothers tribute act aren’t as much of a draw as a couple of current Top 40 bands.

I guess the question is do you want to promote motorsport as motorsport or as a sideshow at a bigger event. Look at the CSMA event for example – one of the biggest crowds for a club motorsport event but for most people the racing was a secondary attraction. That approach will work for a small number of events per year but not at every meeting. I’m not trying to be negative here but you still need to do something at grass roots level.

[ss_collins]

re cinema type lettering the current thing is Magnetic letters on a steel board.

As for my ideas on getting punters in I base this on my experiences whilst doing local marketing for 3 cinemas. A two person team turned a quiet local cinema trying to prote it as a good evening out to having to explain to local papers why people had to queue for ages to get in!! (we sold out every screen with out exception every night for over a month)... ok films and motor racing are different but the same basic apply and are currently not being applied

[BillyT]

I think the Top 40 concerts really help DoT. Dad and son go to watch the racing Daughter and Mum go to watch the music, everyones happy. Ofcourse this is not always the case but thats what they are aiming for.

[Rod Birley]

Rockingham has to pay quite a lot of money to get the "pop" groups there.

[MikeHoyer]

What was the primary attraction at the CSMA event? I was quite shocked at the crowd size, I didn't go, I was somewhere else that weekend I think, but seemed like a great turnout.

[redshoes]

CSMA is more of a family day out. Lots of sideshows, funfair, stunt displays, classic car display, air displays/flypasts. Not sure if CSMA members get discounts but the vast majority of tickets are sold in advance. at the Silverstone one in 2003 I was waiting by the entrance for someone for a good 15-20 mins and despite several hundred people walking in I don't recall seing more than a dozen actually stop to buy tickets.

[HiRich]

You've made me sort out my DoT figures:
- Race only: £14.95 adult, £5.00 child, £32.00 family
- Race & Music (mainly for teenagers) - £35-£60, no concessions
28,000 attending May 2004. My estimate of how the crowd split was 8,000 music tickets (£280k), rest on best price (5,000 family tickets =£160k). Also estimate the circuit makes about 10% franchise income, based on £10 per head average = £28k.
Total circuit income from gate: £468k (excludes sponsorship, race entry fees). The music stage is sponsored.
Event comprises one private day for practice, one public day for racing. Include generous marketing budget, track operation, stage operation, everything except band fees. £100k costs should be very generous?
Notional profit: £368k
Less band fees: Normally one headline act, one moderate act, one nobody act trying to break into the market. Let's presume it's a cut of the gate. £200k?
Still leaves £160k cash in bank.
If someone knows better, or can see if I've got my numbers wrong, I'd be interested to know. I'd be surprised if it ate up the difference.

Now don't get me wrong. Top Hat or BRSCC NW or Croft or Knockhill can't consider a show like Rockingham every other weekend. But it is a glimpse of what can be done with commitment, and when you see it for yourself there are many small lessons to be learned. What it does show is that income from spectators looks like the best opportunity for growth.

[redshoes]

It's been a while since I've been to Rockingham so I'll take you word on the figures, although I hadn't realised the music was extra. I don't recall the marketing I've seen make any mention of that.

Based on those figures why bother with the racing? Ditch the track time, add an extra act or two and run it as a music festival. Looks like would be just as profitable.

[Rod Birley]

Quote from HiRich: "income from spectators looks like the best opportunity for growth". This really is the only option unless we want to pay £400 entry fees for 20 minutes racing. If you think that won't happen take a look at the rallycross section and see what they are likely to be charged this year.
Just for the record BARC S/E have invited the TVR Tasmins to join them at the longer circuits to ensure a fuller grid, but we still need people to come and watch the racing. If nothing else, this is where future competitors and marshals come from.

[ss_collins]

Rich Rockinham has no race entry fees for the oval meetings

[HiRich]

Thanks, SS. I suspected race entry (and championship registration) would be at worst cheap, and even if there were a charge the income would be relatively small, so I didn't include it in the calculations.

So let's move the discussion on. I've already highlighted the issues of recruitment & retention, and the idea of on-site and off-site activities. For both competitor and spectator money, we must recognise that we are in the leisure & entertainment business. However we do it, we need to put on a show (on-track and off)

I have a theory that there are three elements we need to consider in our sport:
1) The cars must be spectacular: Just one car on track should be impressive. I would pay good money to see a 917K being properly spanked at any circuit in Great Britain.
2) The racing must be spectacular: Busy grids, lots of battles through the field (not necessarily the same as a close grid). Unlike F1, overtaking should be possible.
3) The rest of the show needs to be entertaining.
Item 1 is about setting the regulations for the series, and therefore the responsibility of the Clubs. I can't really say too much here, except that we need to recognise the difference between fun (for driver and spectator) and speed. Would you prefer to see a slow 250F drifting, or a Mosler stuck to the track?
Item 2 is also the responsibility of the Clubs. Fine tuning regulations, reducing costs (in most cases), merging grids. I think we've covered this ad nauseam. It requires continuous assessment and innovative thinking.
Item 3 is my field. It's a bit of a catch-all and can be subdivided in several ways. Areas I see for consideration include:
- Continuous activity: Whether that means getting the next race off quickly, or filling the gap with something else (that may be racing related or not) is not actually that important.
- Information: With a greater understanding comes greater involvement (and so greater enjoyment).
- Accessibility: Normally the pits and paddock are open and free. But can we be more pro-active?
- Comfort: On that one glorious day each Snetterton summer, you really want to lay out the picnic blanket. Every other day, you want somewhere to shelter from the wind and rain. You want a good view of more than 100yards of tarmac.

Thinking this way puts some structure to all the ideas, and helps assess the benefits. Every initiative should fit in one or more of these categories. I'm sure there are a few more, and would be interested in ideas. In a minute, I'll draft a few ideas for where the Clubs and competitors especially can assist at nil or marginal cost.