Less than 100 days to the Indy 500, ticket sales are nearly dead-even with 2016 sellout

It’s not the 100^th running, nor is it fans’ full-fledged return following a pandemic – and Doug Boles doesn’t believe the ‘Kyle Larson effect’ has really set-in. Yet every day, the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway wakes up to daily ticket sales reports and sees the 108^th running of the Indianapolis 500 tracking nearly dead-even with the Greatest Spectacle in Racing’s most recent sellout eight years ago.

The 500 seems to be converting more and more casual fans into lifelong race attendees, pushing the race closer to the 350,000-fan sellout for its 100^th running.

“Since the sellout in 2016, I think people are more apt to renew early, just to make sure they have their seats, and people are getting trained that way,” Boles told IndyStar in a 1-on-1 interview last week. “So when you see tickets go up in the renewal period, as they have every year (since 2016), you think, ‘Okay, good we’ve trained more people.’

“But now, what’s happened is over time, literally day after day after day, when we look at the ticket numbers, it’s more tickets sold today, 93 days out, than it was last year 93 days out, and we’re still tracking almost dead-even with 2016, which is crazy.”

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Boles said the Racing Capital of the World hosted more than 330,000 fans last year, the most since 2016 and falling less than 10,000 tickets short of a sellout of its grandstands that hold roughly 234,000 seats. The key in 2016 was the sellout of the track’s grandstand seats May 6, still more than three weeks to race day, which then led to a run on general admission access to the infield.

By May 25, IMS announced it was no longer selling tickets, leading to the lift of the local blackout for the first time in 65 years.

A year ago, IMS saw roughly a 1% uptick in ticket sales, moving from 12,000 unsold grandstand seats to 9,000 (and 325,000 to 330,000 race day attendees). It will still need to see an improvement year-over-year to reach that grandstand sellout mark with enough time for fans to feel a scarcity in infield admission that led to 2016’s sellout.

“For a period of time there, we were slightly ahead (of 2016 sales), and now we’re slightly behind, but without that 100^th-running conversation to drive it, it’s amazing it’s that strong,” Boles said. “I keep wondering if I’m going to wake up one day and realize, ‘Oh, everyone’s bought and set now.’ But it just continues to go.”

Along with edge-of-your-seat finishes the last three years in eventual victories from four-time champion Helio Castroneves and first-timers Marcus Ericsson and Josef Newgarden, Boles attributes the upward trajectory of tickets sales to track owner Roger Penske’s continued investment into the track that presently stands around $50 million just over four years since he completed the purchase of IMS and the IndyCar series from the Hulman-George family.

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Renovations like new video monitors for those in the front stretch grandstands, several larger boards in the infield and high-end touch-ups from revamped bathrooms to coats of paint and paved walkways all across the venue’s nearly 1,000 acres weren’t initially meant to drive revenue, but Boles said IMS’ collective facelift has helped show customers on the fence just how much the track’s new ownership cares about their experience.

“We went through a period of time where we replaced or repaired something if it was broken, but since Roger purchased the Speedway, he’s allowed us to get ahead of things, and so as a fan, I think you feel better about what you see,” Boles said. “’Okay, we’ve got ownership who’s investing alongside us.’”

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Beyond the grandstands, Boles says the track’s Snake Pit ticket sales are “crazy again,” tracking towards the pre-pandemic highs of more than 25,000. And in the infield on race day, he expects to see hordes of short-track racing T-shirts of fans there to watch famed rookie Kyle Larson’s debut as he registers the first attempt of ‘The Double’ in 10 years. Fans who want to see the 2021 NASCAR Cup champion’s first 500 miles of what could be an 1,100-mile day along with the Coke 600 that evening at Charlotte Motor Speedway could help give IMS the late boost it needs to seriously flirt with a sellout.

“I certainly think Kyle Larson will play into it, especially in the next three months. I think fans who may not regularly buy tickets to the 500, whether they’re NASCAR fans or short track fans, I think we’ll see a lot of that as we get closer,” Boles said. “There may have been a little impact, but I don’t think if we drilled down into it, we’ve even seen the ‘Kyle Larson effect’ yet.”