Indy 500 eyeing likely grandstand ticket sellout
One week into May and 19 days until the green flag for the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials said that Indianapolis 500 ticket sales are trending comfortably ahead of 2023 and that IMS is likely to sell out of reserved grandstand seats before race day.
As of Tuesday, Penske Entertainment officials said the IMS ticket office had sold more than 15,000 more tickets at this point in the leadup to the 108th running of the Indy 500 than it had for the 107th in 2023. The figure means that over 90% of the roughly 234,000 grandstand seats have been accounted for, making for fewer than 24,000 on the market.
Last year, IMS ended up with just under 10,000 reserved grandstand seats unsold on race day, IMS president Doug Boles said earlier this year, leading to a total at-track attendance of more than 330,000. The day after last year’s race, Roger Penske told reporters that the 2023 crowd was somewhere between 6,000-8,000 more than the 2022 attendance mark, which at the time was said to have been roughly 325,000 people.
Penske also noted at the time that IMS “could sell 25 more suites” if it had them, and that corporate interest in the largest single-day sporting event in the world is the highest it’s been in recent memory.
Back in February, when race day ticket sales were tracking “almost deadeven” with the complete sellout for the 100th running in 2016, Boles said Snake Pit ticket sales were headed back toward their typical pre-pandemic benchmark of 25,000 or more.
Boles also said then that since the 100th running, avid fans have tended to renew their tickets earlier and earlier, likely leading to an early sales pace that was near – and even for a short time, ahead of – 2016 a couple months ago and has only marginally tailed off from that benchmark of late.
“It’s amazing (ticket sales) have been this strong even without that 100thrunning conversation to drive it,” Boles said in February. “I keep wondering if
I’m going to wake up one day and realize, ‘Oh, everyone’s bought and set now.’ But it just continues to go.”
At that point, Boles said he didn’t believe the “Kyle Larson effect” had taken hold of the casual fan base who might opt to come watch solely to see the 2021 NASCAR Cup champ make the sport’s first attempt at “The Double” in a decade.
“I certainly think Kyle Larson will play into it, especially in the next three months,” Boles said just over two months ago. “I think fans who may not regularly buy tickets to the 500, whether they’re NASCAR fans or short-track fans, I think we’ll see a lot of (sales from them) as we get closer.”
Complete sellout unlikely
That being said, IMS officials do not expect a complete sellout like in 2016.
That year, the track ceased general admission sales the Wednesday of race week, four days from the 100th running, leading to the 500’s first true sellout in its history that dates back to 1911. Eight years ago, IMS sold its final grandstand seat with still 23 days left until race day. With 19 days left now and still more than 20,000 reserved grandstand seats left to sell, a sellout of the complete venue is virtually certain not to come to fruition – even if this year’s sales have exceeded the track’s lofty goals.