Formula 1's Las Vegas Grand Prix Is Going to Cost More Than Monaco
Image: Las Vegas Grand Prix
Formula 1’s upcoming 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix is one of the more hyped events to join the series’ calendar, and now, it looks like prices are going to reflect that hype. According to pre-sale information via the track’s website, you’re going to be paying $500 for General Admission alone — or $2,000 if you want a guaranteed seat. That officially makes this race more expensive than the Monaco Grand Prix — and that’s also not taking into account the massive number of lush packages that are said to be available to VIPs.
If you want a little perspective, grandstand tickets for a full weekend at the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix will run, at maximum, $410.59 using prices from Goo Tickets. The most expensive three-day grandstand ticket available via Grand Prix Tickets is just about $1,500.
I’m going to be honest: If I paid $500 to literally stand around in one small, flat area of Las Vegas in the hopes of seeing a race car on a street circuit and could get my hands on no beverage more powerful than a 0% Heineken, I’d snap. That right there would be my Joaquin Phoenix Joker moment.
If you were looking for a grandstand ticket, you can expect to pay somewhere between $2,000 and $2,500 — though it currently isn’t clear if those are static ticket prices, or if those are just the starting price for certain grandstands. (For example, at Circuit of the Americas, certain rows of a grandstand may cost more than a different row of the same grandstand due to the view.)
You’ll have to inquire about hospitality as well, but Skybox shared hospitality is priced at $10,000 for four days. I also want to note that these are pre-sale prices listed via Ticketmaster; knowing how Ticketmaster sales usually go, there’s a good chance scalpers are going to make a pretty penny on resales for the folks who didn’t nab tickets right away.
G/O Media may get a commission
Wear your fandom on your sleeve.
MobyFox’s officially-licensed bands and custom watch faces are homages to fandoms spanning decades—from The Beatles, to Black Panther.
The thing that I find most fascinating is that these tickets are grouped together by small region, and you only have access to that region. If you have tickets for hospitality in the South Koval Zone, for example, you can’t go pop over to General Admission and see how things are going. You can’t meet up with a friend behind the West Harmon Zone grandstands.
I understand that temporary street circuits are inherently limited, but I’ve never seen such a cordoning off of track regions. Of course, my experience largely comes from IndyCar, where street circuits like Long Beach, Detroit, Toronto, and St. Pete generally confine viewers to certain areas — but you can still wander around all those areas. In Miami for Formula 1, it was the same story; there were a lot of places you couldn’t go, but any area open to one fan was open to all fans. I’ve been looking forward to covering the event as media, but it also makes me wonder how much I’d actually get to see in order to report on the track ambiance.
It’s going to be interesting to see how the limited fan experience plays out — though I’m not sure many of the folks buying tickets are going to be the Average Joe who adores F1. It seems like the Las Vegas Grand Prix is catering to a big-ticket buyer, and the rest of us will be left in the dust.
