Tom Garfinkel , the managing partner of F1’s new Miami GP, was initially aiming to make a profit early on with his run around the Miami Dolphins ‘ stadium.
But the higher than expected costs generated losses to the event held at the Miami International Speedway.
However, he says he doesn’t regret the extra expense they had to go through to ensure fans had the best time possible, and believes there will be a long-term payoff in greater financial gains in the future.
“If you had asked me six months ago, I would have expected this to make money based on where the revenue was going,” Garfinkel said of the accounts of the event.
“But based on the expenses, we won’t make a profit this year. However, it was very important for us to offer a great event.”
“The expenses far exceeded our expectations, but it was because we were trying to do everything possible to live up to what F1 is and the type of event we wanted to offer.
Garfinkel says that one example of where extra money was spent was on the grass in much of the Hard Rock Stadium parking lot to make it a better environment for spectators.
“I think that in many races that you go to, for example, if you go behind the grandstand, the area where the toilets and others are is only asphalt.
“But in the stands of the Beach Club, there is grass everywhere. That serves many purposes. The first is that the black roof gives warmth and the grass makes it cooler for people. It just looks cleaner, it looks better. “.
“It’s expensive to put, I don’t know, 120,000 square meters of grass. But we want to do things right. So we’ll continue trying to do things like that.”
While one way to improve the bottom line would be to vastly increase the number of tickets put up for sale, Garfinkel said he was aware of the risk of letting too many people through and compromising the attendee experience.
“Certainly we had requests to sell a lot more tickets, but I want people to come in and out of here happy with the facilities, bathrooms and all that stuff, and try to do really well,” he defended.
“We want to go over: Are there any sticking points on the pedestrian bridges that we need to do a better job on? Is there a situation on the restrooms, facilities, traffic, etc., that can be improved? Once we assess that, we’ll know.” where we can grow.
“I’d like to get to 100,000 people a day. If we can get to that number next year, we’ll do it. But if we don’t feel like we can do that and give everyone a great experience, we’ll slow it down.”
After selling 82,500 tickets on race day and seeing the impact of the event, Garfinkel said he was delighted with the way things had gone on the first date.
However, it did reveal that some key lessons had been learned from things that didn’t go so well.
“There are many things that we are learning that we think we can do better,” he reflected.
“And there are some things that are going very well. The feedback has been very positive, from the teams, drivers and F1, FIA. And from the feedback we get from the fans, it’s clear that there are some things that I think we can improve on. But , to be an event that we did for the first time, I think it has gone very well”.
A big problem that occurred over the weekend was with the F1 Paddock Club , as guests from the teams were left without food and service on Friday due to staffing issues.
Garfinkel admitted that Miami had made mistakes on that front, but said the matter had been addressed and would be improved by 2023.
“We had a problem with the preparation of the food,” he said. “It wasn’t ideal.”
“The biggest thing that happened was that a lot of our service workers were late because they were being transported one bus at a time. And so when the guests came, not everything was ready. They weren’t ready.”
“When people show up, the first thing they want to do is go get something. And we didn’t do that well at that.”
