The event is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a sell-out crowd, the last tickets having gone some time ago. The weekend is expected to be an overwhelming success.
Miami is already here, and Las Vegas is coming, but Austin – the race that set in motion the surge in F1’s popularity in the USA long before Drive to Survive came along – is bigger and better than ever, with its largest ever crowd expected over this weekend.
“It’s easily our biggest event,” Epstein tells Motorsport.com. “It’s more exciting, I think, than the first year, because we know a lot of things that we’re doing right, and we know we’ve added a lot more to it. I feel people are going to have the most incredible time.
“We have more grandstands, we have more villages for people to go through, we also have more food stands, and we have more shade. We have more programming and more entertainment.
“Ed Sheeran is the biggest artist in the world right now. We feel lucky that we booked him over a year ago, and our music advisors had some good foresight, I think. That being my middle daughter who said you should get Ed Sheeran!
“The logistics of just taking care of a big crowd is what we work on all year, and practice for and get ready for. And I think we’re more prepared this year than we’ve ever been.”
This isn’t the first time that COTA has had to turn people away, but tickets have never gone as quickly as they did this year.
“We got to sold out last year, but not as fast,” says Epstein. “I think it was still super strong last year, but this year, it’s just been overwhelming.
“We’ve probably shifted 10,000 more to grandstands away from general admission. The general admission crowd’s a little less predictable as to where they’re all going to be, and sometimes they all wind up at one spot feeling it’s super crowded.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin track walk
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“One thing we figured out was they happen to be wherever there’s a big TV screen, so we’ve just added more screens all the way around.
“We put a whole village in the infield now. We have a shopping village and famous Hollywood stunt cars on display, and there’s historical Ferraris in another area. We just keep adding more things to do.”
What the event doesn’t have this year is a title fight for fans to enjoy, but Epstein isn’t too worried.
“People don’t buy the ticket based on the championship being decided. It’s a nice bonus you get, and we’ve had that happen.
“But…
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