[LiGhTnInG]

Originally Posted by niko

i) There were no signs how to actually get in from the non-VIP parking area. There were a couple guys (incl. me), who were looking around without any idea in which direction to go. Simple signs with ‘entrance’ and an arrow would do the trick.

There were signs, for paddock, entry, and track cars. Although I think these were on the way in, as opposed to the car park.

Originally Posted by niko

ii) If the EDC round is a part of another event, it would be great if one could buy a ticket either for EDC or the whole event. This would have two benefits: (1) people who are there only for EDC (like me) don’t have to pay the whole price, as they might not be interested in the other content. In round 1, £22 (at the door) is quite a premium price, which many potential EDC spectators are not willing to pay for at this point. (2) It also has a psychological implication: as people buy the ticket, the fact that EDC is something sold separately, makes it something special and draws attention to it.

Silverstone events in the past have shown that it's not really feasable to run a drift event on it's own. Crowds just don't pack out for drifting just yet.

A few 'drift only' events I went to in 2005 and 2006 just didn't have the ticket sales. Maybe in the future, but just not right now.

When a track+spectator areas cost 10,000 plus to hire for a day, organisers just won't make their money back.

Originally Posted by niko

iii) There was very limited information about EDC in the ‘official show guide’. And even worse than that, the information in there was partly wrong! For instance, the guide says EDC takes place along with the time-attack on the whole track, which it didn’t. As I walked in, I was expecting to see signs telling where EDC takes place. The only clue I got was a couple guys with driftworks-hoodies hanging around, but I wasn’t smart enough to link the hoodies and the event. I saw one(!) sign saying EDC and it pointed to the area with the car clubs and ICE…very helpful. So I looked in the guide and as it told EDC takes place on the whole track, I thought “the Redgate corner must be good as cars prolly have high entry speeds”. How wrong was I. Then I got lost and found myself at the “grandstand” (which was full of spectators willing to see drifting), where one could see the last half of corner four (Goddards). By that time the qualifying had been on for ca. 10-15 mins already and I hadn’t seen one car drifting. I asked a couple guys with neon-yellow jackets – “I don’t know” was the answer. The fact that it was raining didn’t make me feel any better. Ultimately I found the “Dunlop Bridge” (which isn’t in the guide either!) after searching through the whole area and listening to the banging exhausts, but ca. 30-40mins after the qualifying started. Great.

You could possibly have missed it, but i heard (multiple times) it announced over the tannoy system, a) where the drifting was taking place, and b) where the best place was to watch it.

Originally Posted by niko

v) It’d be great if the crowd could have a closer look at the cars in the pit, without having to pay a super-premium price. Again, it would involve the crowd more and give tech-freaks like me a chance to have a closer look at the cars. The flip side of the coin is that the pit might get too crowded in the future, but EDC isn’t that big. Yet.

Health and safety, plus the amount of equipment lying around.

Who's to know, a driver testing his car with the engine running and bonnet open doesn't have a child wander round the front and put their fingers in the the fan/manifold etc.

You can't make pits public access.

Originally Posted by niko

vi) It’s better when the drivers pass the spectators while going back to the start. One can then have a better look at the cars and the drivers can also show off a bit, which is always a positive thing.

They did, in the later rounds.