Was Le Mans empty this year?

[Martini...LB]

They had all moved to BN Si 

>Martini...LB

[Lazy B'stard]

They had all moved to BN Si  

>Martini...LB

  Yes, seen reports that there was leud behaviour on Nord this year, pikey slyle trouble causing, bonfires, smut and debauchery aplenty. I also hear from my chums at Aston Martin that some ghastly oinks managed to get into their after race party this year too. At least MB remained civilized!

[Nordic]

Houx Annexe had spaces, as I have said elsewhere the run alside the road where Steve Brown is normally found was empty for the duration.

I did'nt feel the track was any less busy than normal for the race, but the carrefour did seem quite and the queues a bit less maybe.

[lynxd67]

Yes, as a local it was much quieter, especially on the roads at times. The hotels in town weren't full many reporting a 50% occupancy. The Hotel Arbor on the Mulsanne wasn't full either but then at 1,400 euros for a four night stay that is perhaps understandable!

[pretzel]

Not being a camper I cannot comment on site occupancy levels but my impression when visiting friends on BN was that there seemend to be plenty of room around. Having said that I agree with Nordic - it seemed there were plenty of people around the track during the race, even more in some places we thought.

[Christopher]

Generally, I thought attendance was down this year. The start and finish were not as packed as last year. And at the end of the race, the terraces were not jam-packed. There were hardly any Brits-in-chairs where we were (opposite the AM pit).

Arnage and Mulsanne enclosures were not very busy during the night. At sunrise at Mulsanne, there were about 50-60 people on the bank. The last two years have been much busier.

I thought the roads around the area were not as grid locked either. I know the ACO are always trying to improve the traffic flow, but the changes this year were either very effective or were not put to a full test.

The car parks near BN seemed to take a long time to fill up, especially for Thursday quali session.

I suspect there are a number of factors that kept numbers down; money worries, the thought of another wet weekend (not relevant to die hard race fans), the oiks have got bored of it, and the thought of another Audi win (maybe people doubted Pug will finally pull it off).

As for some of the campsites not being rammed, I expect is because of the ACO sold the pitches to agencies that then tried to cream too much profit from them (~40% mark-up and then 2 GE on top of that, with 30% mark-up each) and found themselves holding unsold tickets (I don’t pity them!).

[RaceTeam-PR]

From our position - grandstand above the pitlane, we saw the start of the race. We also talked about what looked like many empty spots on the other side of the start/finish - usually it's so crowded already four hours before the race, but this year, there was plenty of room.

Also walking around the track gave the impression, that there were much fewer attendents this year than, at least, the two previuos years.

Staying at BN for the first time, I can't say whether it was crowded or not, but there was some empty spots near our little camp, so there hasn't been sold out 100%

But still, a great Le Mans again - again!

[Robbo SPS]

BN had massive areas un-sold. 2 years ago they kept moving the boundary fence to allow more in, this year, there was half a field un-used.

Good racing though.

Mad friday wasnt very mad?

[JDS]

Houx Annexe had spaces, as I have said elsewhere the run alside the road where Steve Brown is normally found was empty for the duration.

I did'nt feel the track was any less busy than normal for the race, but the carrefour did seem quite and the queues a bit less maybe.

I was also suprised how 'quiet' (noise and amount of people camping wise) HA was this year. Perhaps the tickets had been sold but the purchasers decided to cut their losses and not travel in the current climate? I'd guess the same was true of most sites (well, amount of campers at least), all of the ones I got to (KN, MB, Bleu) seemed less than full .........

[Werner]

A figure of 234,800 was mentioned on the ACO website

Just found the 2008 figure: 258.500 - So that's app. 10 % less this year.

[smokie]

Don't they always quote pretty much the same figures? It's been around 250,000 every year I've been, as far as I remember.