Rally Norway threatened by bankruptcy?

[COD]

A bit raleted, although not directly:

There was news in Finnsh press today that ISC is trying to charge Neste Rally Finland an extra 100 000€ for timing equipment. The reason for this they are making loss and travel costs to Finland are so high

Similar charge to other events for the rest of the year are plannned, but the charge is depending on country. Is that fair? And is it fair to charging events in the middle of the year?

[Iskald]

[quote="JAM"]First mistake: To charge spectators to see a event that is held on public roads. In a circuit you have a place built to that, and that has costs and spectators must pay to enter, but a stage rally?

QUOTE]

In principle I agree with you JAM, and in Norway we have a law defining the right to walk about in the forest and landscape completely for free. In most cases you are actually allowed also to walk also on private properties without being prosecuted as a trespasser. So I absolutely agree that if you walk out into the forest, and find yourself a place to spectate along the stage, you should not be made to pay.

But if you would like to have a rally program with a map and drive your car to a designated parking spot and want to watch the rally from a spectator point where the organiser have put up catering facilities and public toilets, you should of course pay for those services.

Rally Norway actually went further than most events in offering such services to spectators, which was very good IMO. The seasoned rally spectator will always find their way around, and most possibly avoid the special spectator points (and therefore also avoid paying for it). But for all "new" spectators, of which there were many in Norway this being our first WRC event, this was a very good service - and worth paying for, I would like to add.

But still with all these spectator points, where control of incoming spectators should have been very easy, ticket sales didn`t go as planned. So Rally Norway undeniably lost some money because of this. But the loss could never have been so much as they are telling us now, because they either had to sell 20 000 more three-day rally passes or 70 000 single-stage tickets to cover their total loss. Which IMO would have been absolutely impossible anyhow.

[JAM]

But if you would like to have a rally program with a map and drive your car to a designated parking spot and want to watch the rally from a spectator point where the organiser have put up catering facilities and public toilets, you should of course pay for those services.

Dear Iskald

A catering service is not to be paid by a ticket, a catering service pays itself during the event. Some services as toilets and car park, could be paid, but for what i see lately these tickets are very expensive and are not to pay these services, they are to give profit to the organizers and pay a lot of other things.

I think that a 50% reduction of FIA fees to a WRC event would pay lots of things..

We must put questions to this new model of rallying. The old model worked well, the new model is not working but people continue trying to make it work even if this send spectators away.

As AndyRAC wrote here, the problem is trying to put on WRC the same format as they have on F1. This is not working buit they keep trying year by year. And the WRC faling...

[René]

Originally Posted by Iskald
But if you would like to have a rally program with a map and drive your car to a designated parking spot and want to watch the rally from a spectator point where the organiser have put up catering facilities and public toilets, you should of course pay for those services.

Its strange feeling for me when I read it because, for Monte Carlo and Corse rallies, we have all that you refer about and the event's are totaly free of charge for the spectator (except entrance in service parc) !

[Gard]

Well Iskald. I was at a spectator point which had at least 10.000+ people and none of them needed to pay to get in. Sure many of them, like myself, had ordered passes in advance. But we discussed this during the event and where I stood (app. 20 people) 3 of us had tickets. The rest didn't. most of them even wanted to pay, but couldn't find any to buy from. That would probably be 10% of the total loss, at that single spectator point, that day. If the same happened the next day, it would be 20%.

[Iskald]

Well Iskald. I was at a spectator point which had at least 10.000+ people and none of them needed to pay to get in. Sure many of them, like myself, had ordered passes in advance. But we discussed this during the event and where I stood (app. 20 people) 3 of us had tickets. The rest didn't. most of them even wanted to pay, but couldn't find any to buy from. That would probably be 10% of the total loss, at that single spectator point, that day. If the same happened the next day, it would be 20%.

Absolutely understood, Gard. It is no doubt that the organiser of Rally Norway could have done much better re. ticket sales. But not enough to cover a loss of 14,5 mill. NOK (or even more as current rumours is telling us).
A local newspaper in the rally region reported today that Rally Norway sold tickets for 12 mill. NOK, whick in comparison to the Swedish Rally actually is very good. But the problem is that they had budgeted with an income from ticket sales of no less than 26 mill. NOK.!!! That is more than the double of what they actually sold - which means that they had calculated/budgeted with ticket sales to no less than 100 000 spectators. In my humble opinion this can`t be recognized as anything else than a phantasy budget, and this they should have known in advance. If you budget like this in ordinary business - and naturally end up owing a lot of companies and persons a great, big bundle of money - you will probably be prosecuted for reckless business management.

And this is the sad conclusion after an otherwise great event. There are people and companies (small and large) out there who won`t get their money after delivering services to Rally Norway. They are not happy today...

[BDunnell]

In my humble opinion this can`t be recognized as anything else than a phantasy budget, and this they should have known in advance. If you budget like this in ordinary business - and naturally end up owing a lot of companies and persons a great, big bundle of money - you will probably be prosecuted for reckless business management.

But this is what happens quite a lot with events of all types that overestimate their potential worth to sponsors when they have delusions of international grandeur.

[DonJippo]

I think that a 50% reduction of FIA fees to a WRC event would pay lots of things..

So how much is this famous FIA fee that you are referring to?

[Tomi]

So how much is this famous FIA fee that you are referring to?

Would be nice to know yes if there is any FIA fee, if somebody like Norway has taken own initiative to pay it cant be called a FIA fee.

[JAM]

So how much is this famous FIA fee that you are referring to?

The inscription tax on the calendar (or FIA fee that i refered to) is around 100.000 Euros. I don't know if this value is fixed or depend from event to event.