Club Arnage

Link here: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=350635&f=141&h=0 (http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=350635&f=141&h=0)

I have an issue with inflated buy it now prices and high start figures, but in general tickets on ebay are

acceptable to me,  if you don,t agree then don,t bid would be my advice and anyway that would help me getting

cheap(ish) MB tickets. First MB ticket just posted

I object to it. 

But same old record for me, I'd like the ACO to put in place a sensible system for selling tickets (go on stone me now....) so that buying them is achievable for all and so that some people don't just get an excess of 5+ that they flog off on ebay at £100 a piece profit. 

Call me old fashioned but we're all motorsport fans we all go there for the same reasons and I'd quite like a little more peace and harmony in the world and a little less ripping off of someone else just because you see the chance to make a fast buck. 

I have bought tickets from ebay (from sellers who have 5 + to sell) but I have not and will not sell them on ebay at an inflated price.  I nearly got stuck with a Bleu Nord one last year and was going to put it up with a buy it now of cost price plus postage and paypal. 

I count myself very lucky that there are nice people on here who offer what they've got at face value and it's nice to be able to recepricate when I'm in a position to do so.

Alternatively, screw the lot of you I'm gonna ebay my tickets, Powermites tickets, make meself £700 quid and piss it up the wall  ::)

Agree with you Piglet,
Its one thing passing on a few extra tickets for face value. Once you get onto the ACo's books its better not to rock the boat and try and vary it.

However there are people who order without any intention of using them.
This is without doubt one of the reasons tickets are getting harder to come by, the agencys are bad enough, and I am sorry to say for peace of mind I do use them, but i would much rather not use them and buy my camping pass on the gate in the same way it was possible to up until the early 90's.

I am pretty sure you could also buy grandstand passes on race day as well from the gate or small huts around the village.

Its time Ebay etc where barred from selling all tickets in the same way its barred from selling football or certain pop concert tickets.

If you think about it bob, maybe if the guy you paying over the odds to for tickets did not have them, then maybe you or someone else ticketless could have got them at face value.

We are told if there were no fences to buy stuff ,theft would be massively

reduced. So don't buy the tickets if you don't want to be part of it.but you

might be lonely in the UK during June, whilst we all enjoy ourselves in

France.

Strange post......

Hi Piglet,

 I think Bob is trying to say   Supply and demand,  If there are no buyers there would be no sellers,   and its your

 call if you want to be involved
                                                           Ianb

Its the penalty for not booking early.  I've paid £100 for an MB pass.  never again.

The point is that booking early is a lottery, for a start it means booking ahead of the time that the ACO say that they start taking bookings! 

It's not a buy them on ebay or don't go choice though is it? 

Luckily here we have a community of like minded people that work things out between them without having just making a quick buck as their first priority.

Indeed.

I am delighted to have been able to both buy and sell tickets on here, and always at face value.

  Just goes to show not everybody has heard of Club Arnage !!!!

Strange, this year when I placed my order I was asked exactly how many people were coming and in how many cars.

I assumed this was in an attempt to try and deter pepole from buying lots of tickets purely for the reason of selling them on ebay.

But I ordered 6 camping and 6 general entrance, same as I do every year, and mostly every year they get used. On the rare occasion someone drops out then the ticket only gets sold at face value.

At this rate Le Mans is going to become like the big music festivals where the lines open at midnight and are sold out by the early morning leaving the rest of us to become ebay slaves.

Maybe this is only a problem with sellers in the UK. Could be that mainland Europe is not so hell bent on making a mint out of other peoples enjoyment of their hobby.

Interesting point Christopher.

As the representation of Brits as an overall proportion of those attending is probably well over 50% of the total then I guess that we account for the majority of the problem. That still leaves an awful lot of people, particularly from Holland, Denmark, Germany etc. that have to gain entry and they can't all have got them direct from the ACO, not least because of some of the ACO's shortcomings with ticket administration.

Would any of our European friends like to comment on how tickets are traded in their neck of the woods or it this a particularly British thing?

Well, speakin for DFH, we always got them trouhg either justtickets, first year or through ClubArnage. I don't think there is a big market for tickets in Holland, since it is not very popular with the Dutch crowd for some reason.

I had to buy on ticket last year from *bay, payed 80 pounds, bought it from some lady, she only had the one ticket and could not make it to the race herself, but she was not planning on selling it to me for face value! I did offer this to her.

I think the number of profiteers is relatively low, maybe we should make more name for CA en pursuade people to sell their spares through our webservice, to make sure tickets stay with real fans and not go to waste.

I agree with this ;D

Actually 20.3% are Brits
Stats and breakdown are here
http://www.lemans.org/marketing/live/ressources/pdf/19_transition_profil_spec_fra.pdf
I had a quick look on e-bay France and there are no tickets for LM on sale here!

Thanks for putting me straight on that Termie. Maybe it just feels like there are significantly more Brits than there really are.

I would guess that most of the French don't bother camping but park up and grab a few hours kip in their cars. 

It feels like more British as the majority are in the camp sites

Yup, I'm sure it's the camping that gives us a different view of this.  '06 was the first time we had camped and it did feel quite different on the sites compared to sleeping on the side of the circuit somewhere.