New Campsite

[DelBoy]

Amongst all the recent blurb about priority booking for members, there is a table of examples of pricing differences between members/non-members for various tickets.  One example is:  Château du Houx Campsite (New) at €82/90.

Nothing on the web site about this yet, but it has to be assumed that it is somewhere around the Houx/Houx Annex area - but I wonder where?

I've emailed the ACO to try to get some info.

Del

[Barry]

Interesting that on their examples of prices there is no mention of MB, KN, Expo, Rouge or Bleu, just the usual crap they offer to the public and ACO members. I would put money on, that these will be the only tickets offered when the site crashes, sorry opens on the 7th.

[gt6]

I have a feeling that the "New campsite" will actually be a chunk of the old Annex but at a much higher price, and if that is so then some of the agents already selling annex might not get the allocations they expect.

[BigH]

The ACO need a real kick up the arse about the campsites if you ask me. I thought Blue Nord was pretty appalling this year, - the pitches were tiny, ours and the adjacent pitches were covered in broken glass and taking a dump or a shower was almost impossible. You might put up with this sort of crap when you buy a ticket off a roadside vendor for a few quid on the way down, but given the rigmarole involved these days, the price you pay and the number of people squeezed in there, it's a disgrace.
H

[Brad Zarse]

The ACO need a real kick up the arse about the campsites if you ask me. I thought Blue Nord was pretty appalling this year, - the pitches were tiny, ours and the adjacent pitches were covered in broken glass and taking a dump or a shower was almost impossible. You might put up with this sort of crap when you buy a ticket off a roadside vendor for a few quid on the way down, but given the rigmarole involved these days, the price you pay and the number of people squeezed in there, it's a disgrace.
H

H - i agree on the shower and dumping thing.  I scared the crap out of one woman, by emerging from the shower cubicle at the same time as another Zarse member exited their cubicle last year - I was clean shaven and clearly showered - and I made the comment in a (not unusually) loud voice, which will live with her, and possibly me forever...."'ere - thats unusual - shower, shave AND sh1t all in the same cubicle" - Funnily enough she chose the other free cubicle

[nickliv]

The ACO need a real kick up the arse about the campsites if you ask me. I thought Blue Nord was pretty appalling this year, - the pitches were tiny, ours and the adjacent pitches were covered in broken glass and taking a dump or a shower was almost impossible. You might put up with this sort of crap when you buy a ticket off a roadside vendor for a few quid on the way down, but given the rigmarole involved these days, the price you pay and the number of people squeezed in there, it's a disgrace.
H

I read this all the way through without coffee coming out of my nose. Am I missing something?

The ACO won't ever change things, it works for them at the moment, and the event isn't on the bones of its arse. As far as they're concerned 'If we don't build it, people will come regardless'

[DelBoy]

A somewhat less than useful response from the ACO:

 
Dear Sir,

 

It’s in the prolongation of the Houx but we don’t know yet if there will be electricity or not.


Del

[landman]

A description befitting that well known saying "about as useful as a chocolate tea pot"

[Nordic]

I have a feeling that the "New campsite" will actually be a chunk of the old Annex but at a much higher price, and if that is so then some of the agents already selling annex might not get the allocations they expect.

Do you mean the bit between the new caged in site and the entrance? that was not being used this year so it could be a new site. It would be quite small.

I suspect this new area is in the Houx proper and the Annexe will still be the same dusty wilderness we love.

[Andy Zarse]

The ACO need a real kick up the arse about the campsites if you ask me. I thought Blue Nord was pretty appalling this year, - the pitches were tiny, ours and the adjacent pitches were covered in broken glass and taking a dump or a shower was almost impossible. You might put up with this sort of crap when you buy a ticket off a roadside vendor for a few quid on the way down, but given the rigmarole involved these days, the price you pay and the number of people squeezed in there, it's a disgrace.
H

H - i agree on the shower and dumping thing.  I scared the crap out of one woman, by emerging from the shower cubicle at the same time as another Zarse member exited their cubicle last year - I was clean shaven and clearly showered - and I made the comment in a (not unusually) loud voice, which will live with her, and possibly me forever...."'ere - thats unusual - shower, shave AND sh1t all in the same cubicle" - Funnily enough she chose the other free cubicle

Lies Bradley! You did not shower once all week!

[Lorry]

As for the quality of campsites, the ACO make Dale Farm look like paradise.

They must realise that people won't put up with just a patch in a field.  Even the music festivals are getting sophisticated

[Kpy]

As for the quality of campsites, the ACO make Dale Farm look like paradise.

They must realise that people won't put up with just a patch in a field.  Even the music festivals are getting sophisticated

They will not do that until people stop paying premiums to agencies or bidding over the odds on Ebay for a patch in a field.

[Steve Pyro]

Very true, demand far outstrips supply.  The clamour for and anguish over tickets on this and other forums demonstrates to the ACO that they can continue to offer a dusty patch of grass and a chemical toilet and there will still be a queue all the way back to Rouen.

[alibongo]

As for the quality of campsites, the ACO make Dale Farm look like paradise.

They must realise that people won't put up with just a patch in a field.  Even the music festivals are getting sophisticated

Yeah should have been on the camp site I found myself on at the 24hrs of Spa this year bud no tap or shitter anywhere near just a wet sloping rough patch of grass with peeps going into the woods for a dump.............not ideal in the dark lol 

[Dave H]

This is one of the primary reasons I threw in the towel on the whole event after twenty years.  When the "pain in the ass" factor outweighs fun, find something else.  Sebring IS Le Mans of old, and probably a bit more fun still.  Le Mans will not get better.  It'll just continue to be over-sold and under-delivered for all the reasons already mentioned.  I miss the family/friends group part, but "Le Mans the event" has been on life support since about 2006 IMO.