I wouldn't be worried by ticket sales at this point. People will buy them last minute. That might not be the behavior in the US but it is certainly in Jamaica. They just had their Champs these past few days and the venue has a significant capacity of around 30,000 seats.
It has a capacity of 30k and it was full for those championships? With a mostly walk up crowd? I hope they give away tickets if there is low interest. The launch will be much better if the stadium seems full but I agree with the other posters above that the three-day schedule is the biggest challenge. If you’re not a serious fan of the sport, even free tickets three evenings in a row will be a hard sell.
I wouldn't be worried by ticket sales at this point. People will buy them last minute. That might not be the behavior in the US but it is certainly in Jamaica. They just had their Champs these past few days and the venue has a significant capacity of around 30,000 seats.
It has a capacity of 30k and it was full for those championships? With a mostly walk up crowd? I hope they give away tickets if there is low interest. The launch will be much better if the stadium seems full but I agree with the other posters above that the three-day schedule is the biggest challenge. If you’re not a serious fan of the sport, even free tickets three evenings in a row will be a hard sell.
I've been checking recently the ticket sales and you can only select specific seats on the grand stand in Jamaica (the other parts of the stadium don't have numbered seatings so we don't know the amount of tickets sold).
The amount of unavailable tickets (unavailable doesn't mean they were actually sold) in the grand stand (which has a capacity of 4k) is extremely low as mentioned by some other posters (around 25%). Of course the grand stand has much higher prices compared to the rest of the stadium ($60-100 on the grand stand to $10 on the bleacher area), meaning other areas could have higher percentages of sales, but it doesn't look promising at all for a stadium with 35k seats.
I have just seen videos from the high school meet that was held there during this past weekend and it was quite packed. If they come halfway close to that they can be quite happy with it. If I were them and the rest of the stadium only has 25% ratio of sold tickets I'd start giving tickets for free to local people or the crowd will be dead.
Also, I constantly see them promoting through social media that they are broadcasting the event in 189 countries (most of them through a paywall). Maybe I'm missing something but I really don't see how that is a major achievement compared to any other WA meet (where they can be seen via free TV or Youtube in pretty much the same amount of countries). I get people in the US don't like to pay Flotrack to watch most of the meets and Peacock might be a great solution for them, but for the rest of the world it is a big downgrade (not to mention the big time differences that will make most of the people in other continents other than America not watch it)
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Ticketmaster Beverly Hills shows not much sales for GST. Typical for USA. Mt Sac Relay Quater is about 1/10th of Europe and China. The rest are around 1/20th. The Olympics has 1,000,000 times the seat sales of Mt Sac Relays quter combined.
We are flying down Thursday from Pennsylvania and can't wait to see the stadium and these events - especially for those running outside their normal "comfort zone". It will be warm (temps in mid 80's) so perhaps not fast times in middle distance but still expect some great racing - wish Jacob was in the mix.
I'm rooting for this to succeed. I have a lot of respect for MJ and what he's trying to do.
That said - ticket sales for Kingston looks ABYSMAL. If you go on to the Grand Slam Track site, probably about 75% of the reserved seating is still available. It's going to be awkward when they hold the inaugural event in a stadium that's basically empty.
This is one of the problems with the 3 day format. A meet like Weltklasse or Bislett games or Monaco is a single day, and 3 hours long. The stadiums sell our every year. With GST you're spreading the crowd out over 3 days.
Hopefully they can get people to attend, but I'm not sure how many non-Jamaicans are making the trip to Kingston this weekend to watch the meet.
have no clue
other than
When Bolt Powell and there rest of the top 10 in the world all time great ensemble could not fill 20 percent of the stadium for national champs in their hay day.
is it possible that MJ brain trust would not know about their are great athletes and apathetic fans, for the most part.? i mean everybody is proud to be Jamaican when Bolt dominated, and could not bother to support the local scene?
Grand Slams are predicted to be Class E 1-3,000 fans like LAGP, NYGP, Eugene Hayward Field, etc. The DL is Class A,B,C w 50K, 20K, 10K fans. The Eugene DL is Class E the worst w 1-3K Fans. Hope this helps.
Meets should be classified by the caliber of competition, not how many spectators are there. GST will have higher caliber of runners than most Diamond League meets.
North America always has little meets. For decades and decades many have failed. WC 2001 Edmonton, WC 2022 Eugene, 2024 OTs Euence had to have Snoop Dogg and Terry Crews save the TV show, ATL, Vin Lannana's Team League, yearly Eugene DL, Mark Wetmore's Adidas Track Classic, Sourd Running, LAGP in the Capital of Sports, T&F, Movies, Pro Sports TV, , NYGP in the Big Apple, Wall St, at that, the list goes on.
Also, I constantly see them promoting through social media that they are broadcasting the event in 189 countries (most of them through a paywall). Maybe I'm missing something but I really don't see how that is a major achievement compared to any other WA meet (where they can be seen via free TV or Youtube in pretty much the same amount of countries). I get people in the US don't like to pay Flotrack to watch most of the meets and Peacock might be a great solution for them, but for the rest of the world it is a big downgrade (not to mention the big time differences that will make most of the people in other continents other than America not watch it)
wait... you can't watch the diamond league on public tv in the US??? sorry for off topic question but diamond league, worlds, hell even road running is on the CBC in canada. I didn't realise you had to pay to watch diamond league or world athletics stuff in the US.
The first GST meet in Kingston is set to go off in 6 days, and I feel like there hasn't been too much talk about it.
What gives? I thought MJ's goal with GST was to get people excited about track and field. Is this a sign that GST is doomed for failure? I feel like we won't know until the first season is fully complete.
Everything you want to know about GST/Jamaica here:
There have been 10 scratches from the Grand Slam Track Kingston fields that were announced three weeks ago.
American Quincy Hall, who has not raced since winning Olympic 400m gold in Paris, is a notable one. He is replaced by Jamaica’s Zandrion Barnes. pic.twitter.com/lDoOj1oz1O
Bunch of late scratches... Quincy Hall and Hansle Parchment being the lone really big names. CPT getting in the men's long distance is pretty funny. I suspect he'd need the head start that the field got on Telahun Haile Bekele to beat him in an honest 3,000m race. Abdi Nur and Edwin Kurgat must be pretty banged-up to not be getting the call here.
Meets should be classified by the caliber of competition, not how many spectators are there. GST will have higher caliber of runners than most Diamond League meets.
3 of the GST meets are class A, and one is class B (Miami) as per the calendar on WA. Money and level wise it is fair for them to be level A. But according to the rules you are also obliged to have field events if there are more than 6 events, as well as reach certain levels of spectators on the event...
Side note: GST will most definetely not have a higher caliber of runners than most DL meets.
Meets should be classified by the caliber of competition, not how many spectators are there. GST will have higher caliber of runners than most Diamond League meets.
Bunch of late scratches... Quincy Hall and Hansle Parchment being the lone really big names. CPT getting in the men's long distance is pretty funny. I suspect he'd need the head start that the field got on Telahun Haile Bekele to beat him in an honest 3,000m race. Abdi Nur and Edwin Kurgat must be pretty banged-up to not be getting the call here.
Re: Parchment, GST did a nice job replacing him with McLeod. Can't have a former Olympic 110m hurdles champion from Jamaica race in Kingston? Replace him with another one!
We are flying down Thursday from Pennsylvania and can't wait to see the stadium and these events - especially for those running outside their normal "comfort zone". It will be warm (temps in mid 80's) so perhaps not fast times in middle distance but still expect some great racing - wish Jacob was in the mix.
Jacob??
Marcell Jacobs?
Jacob Kiplimo?
Dylan Jacobs?
Dylan is already in the field, so wish granted there. The other guys aren't upgrades over the current fields. Why are you wishing for a downgrade??
