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Tickets go on sale Friday for Tour de France team presentation in Leeds - pre-registration closes tonightFirst Direct Arena (picture credit firstdirectarena.com)

Tickets go on sale Friday for Tour de France team presentation in Leeds - pre-registration closes tonight

Tickets for event at First Direct Arena will cost £45-£85
by Simon_MacMichael
Tue, Apr 22, 2014 09:54
10

Tickets will go on sale this Friday for what Welcome to Yorkshire is billing as the biggest team presentation in the history of the Tour de France, at the First Direct Arena in Leeds on Thursday, July 3. But if you’re quick there’s a chance to get them earlier by pre-registering, which closes tonight.

The tickets, which cost £45, £55, £65 and £85, will go on sale at 9am on Friday, April 25 through the venue’s website.

But Le Tour Yorkshire says that there will be a chance to get them before that by pre-registering on its own website, as long as you do so by midnight tonight.

Anyone requiring accessible seating will have to wait until Friday, and book tickets by calling 0844 248 1585 and pressing option 2.

The £60 million venue, which opened with a Bruce Springsteen concert in July last year, has a capacity of 13,500.

Last year’s team presentation at the harbour of Porto-Vecchio on Corsica was free, as was the one in Trafalgar Square in London in 2007, the last time the race was in the UK.

However, it’s not unknown for the event to be ticketed, dictated largely by the type of venue in which it is held.

In 2011, tickets were sold for the team presentation at the Vendée region’s Puy du Fou theme park, with the crowd numbering more than 7,000.

Yorkshire Grand Depart
Tour de France Grand Départ
Le Tour Yorkshire
2014 Tour de France
Simon MacMichael

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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10 comments

Avatar
Ghedebrav | 10 years ago
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Being a Yorkshireman, there is no way I'm spending eighty five bloody quid to see this.

The insanity and exploitation has definitely begun. Feeling less and less enthusiastic about this by the day 31

Avatar
ToonSi | 10 years ago
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They've said on twitter that the money is supposedly going straight on the event, but doing the math of assuming all tickets were the cheapest £45 & given that the arena has a capacity of 13k, that's £585k without taking into consideration the £65 & £85 seats.
Add to that that they've admitted that the Arena isn't charging them for its use, then it looks to be that even with any event costs they will make a fair whack of money from it, possibly a good way to covering the shortfall in the government's funding.
If Welcome to Yorkshire were more transparent and stated that's why they were charging then perhaps I'd be more inclined to buy a ticket (as the resurfaced roads will still be there long after the grand depart has finished), but as it is I certainly won't be going.

Avatar
ToonSi | 10 years ago
0 likes

They've said on twitter that the money is supposedly going straight on the event, but doing the math of assuming all tickets were the cheapest £45 & given that the arena has a capacity of 13k, that's £585k without taking into consideration the £65 & £85 seats.
Add to that that they've admitted that the Arena isn't charging them for its use, then it looks to be that even with any event costs they will make a fair whack of money from it, possibly a good way to covering the shortfall in the government's funding.
If Welcome to Yorkshire were more transparent and stated that's why they were charging then perhaps I'd be more inclined to buy a ticket (as the resurfaced roads will still be there long after the grand depart has finished), but as it is I certainly won't be going.

Avatar
farrell replied to ToonSi | 10 years ago
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ToonSi wrote:

They've said on twitter that the money is supposedly going straight on the event, but doing the math of assuming all tickets were the cheapest £45 & given that the arena has a capacity of 13k, that's £585k without taking into consideration the £65 & £85 seats.
Add to that that they've admitted that the Arena isn't charging them for its use, then it looks to be that even with any event costs they will make a fair whack of money from it, possibly a good way to covering the shortfall in the government's funding.
If Welcome to Yorkshire were more transparent and stated that's why they were charging then perhaps I'd be more inclined to buy a ticket (as the resurfaced roads will still be there long after the grand depart has finished), but as it is I certainly won't be going.

It wont be selling to anywhere near 13000 though. I'd imagine that they will lose some capacity due to the stage set up, cameras and screens etc and there will be a very, very high number of guests. All the teams' staff will no doubt need seats, plus partners and friends, sponsors will expect to get in for free too.

First Direct will no doubt have dibs on up to 10% of the capacity as part of it's naming rights as well as freebies for local government bodies and Tour Yorkshire staff etc.

Although they might be getting the arena for free, they will just be getting an empty shell, they'll still have to pay for lighting, sound and staging and such like as well as the associated crews and riggers they will need to bring in.

I still reckon they'll be not far off a quarter of a million in profit after all that though. It'd better be one hell of a show.

Avatar
Yorkshie Whippet | 10 years ago
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I've just watched the team presentations at Tour of Flanders, Sheldprijs and Paris-Roubiax. Also been within feet of Cancellara returning to team bus after Flanders and within inches of some of the other riders at the other events, All for free, (well Flanders did involve far too much Belguim beer).

Was hoping to say I was there in Millenium Square. But at that price, hope it's on tv good excuse for more beer and pizza.

Avatar
Leodis | 10 years ago
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I registered for this a long time ago but the prices are well above what should be charged.

It should have been held at millennium square on a free ticket basis rather than bleed the people paying for the event even more so, I mean £65 for a half decent seat is a joke.

Avatar
Him Up North replied to Leodis | 10 years ago
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Leodis wrote:

I registered for this a long time ago but the prices are well above what should be charged.

It should have been held at millennium square on a free ticket basis rather than bleed the people paying for the event even more so, I mean £65 for a half decent seat is a joke.

+1

...unless it's a very Yorkshire affair, with a "blue" comedian, bingo and a meat raffle. 38

Avatar
Some Fella | 10 years ago
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The Belfast Giro presentation is free.
Just sayin like.

Avatar
giff77 replied to Some Fella | 10 years ago
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Some Fella wrote:

The Belfast Giro presentation is free.
Just sayin like.

Yep, I'm hoping they've beefed up the servers for the initial surge. Not found anyone to queue up for me at the Tourist Board so it will be an online attempt.

Avatar
farrell | 10 years ago
0 likes

How much were the previously ticketed events?

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