Tuesday, February 23, 2010

F1 stalls at Sepang

A friend of mine is a huge F1 fan. Having been to most of the F1 races in Sepang over the years, he isn't convinced organisers here are doing enough to keep the event attractive in the face of Singapore's spectacular start.

"Just collecting your ticket in Singapore is an experience," he told me.

"People pay a lot of money for their tickets. Here you get paper, in Singapore you have high quality plastic cards with lanyards in a cool box that one would like to keep sealed," he said.

His disappointment in the way the last few F1 races at Sepang have been organised is a far cry from how he felt just four years ago when there were F1 parties aplenty, free food in KL's clubs, fireworks, and F1 wherever you looked.

"It was the Mega event. Now, it seems that the thunder has been silenced in recent years," he said.

Just last year he told me he had to wade through knee deep mud at the Malaysian Grand Prix to catch the entertainment headlined by an artist who hasn't been popular since Y2K.

"Virtual insanity", indeed. (That's the title of his hit song in 1996 in case you forgot).

This year my friend isn't optimistic about Sepang and it's not because Beyonce isn't part of the show.

Having booked his ticket online already, a confirmation mail read: "All advance booking will be closed by 28th March 2010. Ticket collection at SIC Ticket Counter at the Circuit or in KL Sentral by 2nd April 2010."

However, what the mail failed to say is that the tickets are only available mid-March which he found out after a trip out yesterday to collect the tickets.

He now has to go back again. Such a simple thing, yet not considered.

"The poor sales girl told me that many people complain about having to come here, and not being able to collect the ticket," he said.

"The only reason I am going has nothing to do with Sepang’s F1 promotion. Schumi is back. That’s it," he said.

He's also puzzled by this year's tie-in with a shoe festival to sell F1 tickets.

Needless to say, my friend is now contemplating spending 25 times more to watch the F1 in Singapore instead of KL.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Dude... what are u talking about? Jay Kay rocks man! He's the most fitting artist to be at Race related concert.

Question - who tops the lap time on Top Gear's Star in a Reasonably Priced Car challenge?

Answer - Jay Kay.

Don't hate the man. Jamiroquai is an awesome band!

As for F1 in Sepang... oh well. No comment.

Marcus said...

Dude... fair point about Jay Kay's driving prowess but that was more than a few years ago and since then his time has been beaten by other stars. I guess if you like his music then he must have seemed like a perfect choice.

SP11 aka. Mr. Pertz said...

Not sure...1 month to go, no F1 to be seen in KL. I am receiving special offers for Singapore already.

Something needs to be done in terms of marketing, advertising and PR or we will see Bernie take this event from Malaysia.