Indy 500 ticket sales strong, track head says
Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles is more confident than ever. Outside of last year’s historic 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, the race on May 28 will draw the largest crowd the speedway has seen in at least the last 20 years.
Does that include topping the estimated 300,000 that showed up in 2011 for the 100th anniversary of the first Indy 500?
“With the exception of last year, this race will be bigger than (any race), at least as far back as I can go,” Boles said.
Boles, who tries to call customers every night to invite them back to the 500, expressed similar optimism a little more than a month ago. But frankly, he said, ticket sales are looking better than they did even then.
He hesitates to make comparisons to the 100th running, which brought in an estimated 350,000 fans, but sales over the last 10 days are almost neckand-neck with 2016.
“It’s a small sample size ... but we’ve seen a significant uptick in that time,” Boles said. “We’re not quite sure what the reason is for it. Some of it is probably (Fernando) Alonso (a Formula One star participating for the first time). Some of it’s probably people are seeing the signage going up or just that it’s May.
“Whatever it is, we’re very encouraged. We’re still not (at) 2016, but it’s better than where we were when we told you we were fired up a couple of weeks ago.”
Does that mean there’s a chance the local television blackout will be lifted again? Probably not, Boles said. He won’t rule it out all together, but he also said the odds aren’t especially good.
Boles explained that last May the blackout was lifted for the first time in 50 years under a special set of circumstances.
“If you rewind to how Mark announced it, he said it was a gift to the city of Indianapolis for all of their support,” Boles said of Hulman & Co. President and CEO Mark Miles. “He said that we would consider it again if we sold out our grandstand tickets, and we would be in that position with (general admission tickets) where we were last year.
“I don’t think we’re going to get there, but if we got there, we’d obviously sit back down and figure out what to do. But at this point in time, I don’t see that happening.”
There is no deadline for that decision to be made, Boles added, but last year Miles made the announcement on the Tuesday before the race. Boles expects that if tickets sales boomed to the point that a blackout conversation was needed, the timing would be similar.
IMS and Verizon IndyCar Series officials made the decision to stop selling tickets last year — though the track could have held more people — to provide a better fan experience. The blackout was lifted to give fans who wanted to buy tickets but couldn’t the opportunity to see the race live.
“We could have put another 100,000 people in (the speedway) last year,” Boles said. “I don’t know if that many more would have showed up, but you could have put 100,000 people in here.
“But we didn’t have enough concessions, didn’t have enough restrooms, didn’t have enough law enforcement, didn’t have enough first-aid stations.
“That’s really what drove the decision (last year). Let’s make sure we offer the right experience for the customers that are here. We decided we needed to stop selling, and when you do that, you don’t really have a choice in terms of the rest of the community; we’re going to turn on the TV.”