Circuit of The Americas is offering to buy back United States Grand Prix general admission tickets purchased by “early bird” pass holders at more than face value as it prepares to announce its music acts.
The “early bird” GA sales period saw tickets sold at $299, but COTA will offer to buy back those tickets at $350 over the coming weeks, with the concert lineup set to be confirmed on April 29. COTA chairman Bobby Epstein says the aim of the initiative is to allow more than 10,000 fans a chance to cash in if they are unable to attend the race or simply want to make a profit on their earlier commitment.
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“We know that when we announce our performers for this year’s grand prix weekend that those tickets are going to be worth well more than they paid,” Epstein said. “We think that’s an unusual thing.
“But it continues to be about delivering a spectacular event that pleases racing fans and music lovers and campers and basically anyone who looks forward to sharing time with friends or family at a non-stop, something-for-everybody, fun environment. That’s what we always try and do and I think we’re going to do it better than ever this year.”
The buy-back period will run from now until May 6, meaning fans can make a choice about whether to sell their tickets after the concerts are announced at the end of April. Epstein acknowledges that could lead to COTA being bypassed in search of even higher resale prices, but says the initiative guarantees fans a profit if they want it.
“I think they’ll be able to do that, but you usually go through a reseller and they charge a commission and I don’t know where that really winds up,” he said. “But we clearly want to buy them back because we think we’re going to be able to sell them higher.
“We don’t have a reseller’s fee, but that is the point — we’ll make it easy. I don’t think many people will take us up on it but I think it makes a strong statement for us.”
Epstein says the offer shows just how highly he rates the quality of music act that will be performing at the track just outside Austin later this year.
“We’re going to put a limited amount of tickets on sale again after the music announcement at a little bit of a higher price. Still below where we went out with GA tickets last year, so we do want to show there’s value in our tickets and we will do that in a number of different ways.
“No clues, but we did a lot. Taylor Swift was the first we did that with and we’ve had a lot of superstars since — whether it’s Bruno Mars, or Pink, or Billy Joel, there are a lot of big names — but I think this is going to be perhaps the biggest since the Taylor Swift announcement. Well, this will be.”