Shots fired!

We have booked through an agency for years now. Fortunately we are top of the list so Terte Rouge it is.
The campsite was fine, toilets and showers were clean. The rubbish did pile up. What is the point of having separate bins for cans, bottles etc if they aren't emptied. Security good. Even getting in and out on our  bikes for daily provisions was easy.
I did have a good wander all the way up to Porche curves during the night and was glad to see they have made more area's to view from.
Things have improved from my first trip in 1983 but I do wonder about there announcement about having even more spectators. Talking of over 400,000! When I first came there were hardly any toilets and the circuit was probably a bio hazard by the time the race finished. Over the years the toilets have got better and more numerous but this year there were more queues. Where are the extra 100,000 people going to watch from? Talk of opening up the interior of the circuit to have a viewing area at 1st chicane are fine but people will always head for the pit straight. Had a friend who said as he was heading past Ford chicane to Terte Rouge where there is a pinch point a van was trying to get up through the crowd and it was such a crush he feared for peoples lives, he is not going again.
Think the ACO have to have a think about extra people. And we talk every year of Terte Rouge, it is prime ground for hospitality. If it goes we would probably swap to Spa 24hr or classic.

They did it for the first time on Mulsanne.
And Mulsanne did seem to have more campers than usual.

Were there fewer Brits there this year?
Port on the way out (thursday, Pompy, evening) was quieter than usual and we saw less stickered up cars heading to the ports too. There were fewer Brits on our campsite by the looks of things. Ferry back from C'bourg on sunday night was so empty we thought we had missed the boat when we arrived and we were eventually joined by less than a dozen cars and vans.

Maybe difficulty getting tickets, cost of living or just a preference to go to Germany to watch millionaires kicking a sack of air around a field for 90 minutes?

Thoughts?

Even if you get epinettes you might be sent to beasejour.  We got in in the end but saw many people being told it was oversold. And no food outlet in epinettes this year as advertised promised as part ot ticket price rise.

Thats the site the c63 went up in smoke and they pushed it over to some poor sods car that melted as well

Prairie was appalling. The bottom field had no toilets, water or showers so everyone just pissed and shat wherever they could. The access road was already like the Somme when we arrived on Thursday and led to chaos getting out after the overnight rains. There were two poor young kids trying to deal with testosterone fuelled gammon who were making it worse by trying to get out of the mud revving the bollocks off their campers and digging ever bigger holes everywhere.

I'm affraid that if we can't get onto Houx or Eppinettes next year its going to be another stay at home and watch it in the garden year.

I have been attending since 1991, and still going so must enjoy it. However, I have found the experience from booking to campsites and facilities progressively getting worse.
Despite being online in the first hour of each members presale days, I found the grandstand I wanted to be sold out, and pretty much all of the campsites. Am assuming that ACO are bulk selling best stuff to agencies first.
We stayed on Beausejour again this year by default, not choice and felt the facilities were inadequate. Probably wouldn't be allowed by Health and Safety over here. One loos and shower block for a large camping field with hundreds of pitches. No drinking water standpipes, so everyone using the showers. Nowhere to wash stuff and no rubbish collection all week, leaving growing piles of trash.
With another record attendance, 329,000, ACO must be raking it in so it should be feasible to provide standards we've had in the past. My impression is that emphasis has shifted from providing a good experience for fans, to making as much cash as possible, so everything is stretched beyond limits.
Thats my whinge over, though interested in other's experience/opinions.

Anyway, object of this post really, is how are others booking and getting what/where they want. Agencies? Good/bad experiences with agencies, etc.

They didn't in Houx. Didn't even write the reg number on the camping ticket.

I've been in quite a few - the pit straight is good though a bit underexciting (apart from the noise at the very start); some of them are open back stands so there could be wind/rain whipping through. This year it was pretty chilly at times and the ACO stand was good as it's a permanent fixture with toilets etc in the stand. Expensive though - Just Tickets price including enough ACO memberships to be able to buy the GE+T18 tickets, was £349 IIRC.

The best view I've had was probably Dunlop (T5 or Goodyear as it's probably now known even though it's at the Dunlop bridge). Worst in terms of comfort was the old Maison Blanche (T23) which doesn't have backs to the seats so no snoozing