17/06/2011
NEWS STORY
In the wake of the ticketing fiascos that blighted the 2010 Commonwealth Games and this year's Cricket World Cup, organizers have promised that there will no such problems for the forthcoming GP.
Such a fiasco meant that athletes competed in front of empty grandstands at the Commonwealth Games, while fans desperate for tickets were being turned away at the turnstiles. Then, at this year's Cricket World Cup the official ticketing website crashed, while eager fans trying to buy tickets at box offices in Bangalore, Nagpur and Ahmedabad were attacked by police, such was the gap between supply and demand.
With the maiden Indian Grand Prix - now returned to its original October 30 slot - just four months away, Ashish Hemrajani, founder and CEO of Bigtree Entertainment, the holding company for the race's official ticketing partner Bookmyshow.com, has assured F1 fans that there will be no such problems.
"You'd never face that kind of problem here," he told Reuters. "That's really our strength, excellent customer support, a robust system and the focus on technology.
"It's all about technology," he continued. "If you know that you are going to get that kind of traffic, you have to learn to manage it. We will ensure anything like that does not happen.
"We do ticketing for events, concerts, plays," he added, "In the Indian Premier League (IPL) we do it for Mumbai, Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan. Even in IPL, there was tremendous rush but nothing went wrong. We are used to handling it. Our system works seamlessly."
Three-day passes for the event will cost between 3,000 and 50,000 rupees (£41 - £690) and go on sale next month, with an Indian team and an Indian driver on the grid Hemrajani expects the race to be a sell-out.
"This is the first time that it's being held in the country," he said. "There is a lot of media hype around the race. It's a very attractive price range, pretty encouraging to get people to come to the arena.
"Of course it helps to have Indian drivers and an Indian team out there. If you see the race in Monza, you see so many fans turning up and cheering for Ferrari."