[LM24] Le Mans 2014 - Who is Attending?

[Aysedasi]

I'll be interested to hear everyone's take on attendance this year. It was very busy at the circuit at all times yesterday and at Mulsanne on Wednesday evening and Arnage last night. The stands yesterday looked pretty heavily populated for qualifying and I just felt that there were a lot more people here already than has been the case in previous (recent) years.....?

[isynge]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

I'll be interested to hear everyone's take on attendance this year. It was very busy at the circuit at all times yesterday and at Mulsanne on Wednesday evening and Arnage last night. The stands yesterday looked pretty heavily populated for qualifying and I just felt that there were a lot more people here already than has been the case in previous (recent) years.....?

I think everyone figures it's busy this year. From Dunlop down to start finish it was solid last night, and as for fitting in a grandstand? Forget it...

[GT6]

Well our campsite was very full compared to the last few years and the area between dunlop and TR corner seemed much more busy than usual and completely packed at the start of the race, although the view for many people was ruined by some very rude Germans who insisted on leaving a massive garden parasol up for the start which was very very inconsiderate, and after many people asked nicely for them to put it down they just laughed and made it plain they had no intention of doing so, anyway would agree numbers well up on last year

[rdjones]

I think I heard on RLM that the crowd for the weekend was 262,000

[GT6]

My thanks to all of those that tried to help helen get down this year and all those that welcomed her when she arrive on saturday morning, Ian especially for giving her a grandstand seat at dunlop and Vernon for her race ticket, and if select motor racing read this forum i would suggest they let her drive or at least direct the bus next year rather than rely on drivers who have never been to le mans during the race.

[batmobile]

Originally Posted by rdjones

I think I heard on RLM that the crowd for the weekend was 262,000

exactly 263300 by the official reports

[Elaviel]

That's not entirely true, they had been before, just got a little lost!

[Simmi]

The crowds really came out this year. Biggest attendance since '89.

It didn't really make things more difficult (although I'm sure a few had some experiences). You just had to plan things a bit further in advance - for instance if you wanted to watch from a grandstand in qualifying.

The Friday pitwalk basically ground to a halt outside the Audi garages due to huge weight of numbers but eventually got going again.

It will be interesting to see whether it kicks on next year with the arrival of Nissan.

[bella]

unrelated and random - did anyone else not have a single glitch with mobile data this weekend? complete change from 2012. great one from orange france.

[isynge]

Originally Posted by bella

unrelated and random - did anyone else not have a single glitch with mobile data this weekend? complete change from 2012. great one from orange france.

Complete opposite. SFR (Vodafone's roaming partner) a total dead loss trackside when anything of moment was happening (so essentially whenever cars were running).

Get a little bit away and worked like a dream, but a severe lack of bandwidth very pronounced trackside.

Interestingly up to 2012 never had any mobile data issues, but I guess smartphone penetration is now considerably larger.

[bella]

that sounds a lot more like a normal big sporting event, especially one with hundreds of thousands of people there.

i'm on ee, and it was hooking up to orange's 4g network whilst i was there. even at the start and the finish it was quick and faultless, and the data bundles on my contract are complete peanuts. it dropped onto 3g occasionally which was a bit more glitchy, but still perfectly workable. the co-driver was using that and not once did she do some swears about it

i'm sure it'll all change when more people start using 4g though

[isynge]

Originally Posted by bella

that sounds a lot more like a normal big sporting event, especially one with hundreds of thousands of people there.

i'm on ee, and it was hooking up to orange's 4g network whilst i was there. even at the start and the finish it was quick and faultless, and the data bundles on my contract are complete peanuts. it dropped onto 3g occasionally which was a bit more glitchy, but still perfectly workable. the co-driver was using that and not once did she do some swears about it

i'm sure it'll all change when more people start using 4g though

Didn't get much of a sniff of 4G on SFR, but may look at an Orange SIM next time round. 4G does seem to be that bit more resilient to heavy usage, for example London Bridge area always struggled with 2G/3G, but 4G seems fine.

[bella]

it's definitely worth a look next year. we seem to be in that sweet spot in france (though maybe only on orange?) between 4g being rolled out quite widely in the populated bits and not many people justifying the slightly higher charges to switch.

ee have a really really good data tracking service for data roaming too. you *have* to buy a bundle before you can use it which is faultless except for when the site isn't working... on the other hand, it tracks exactly what you've got left so it's really easy to manage your usage.

[wewantourdarbyback]

As I said in another thread, I'm on 3 and whoever their partner is was fine, except for the start and finish of the race. They needed a temporary transmitter to deal with 200k people all trying to upload a vine of the start of the race.

Wouldn't have been a problem for me normally, but I was tweeting for Carwitter and I had to ask the guys back in the UK if the tweets were going through (they were) as I couldn't even read my own timeline.

Tried the WEC app at the start of the race (had worked fine in qualy) and there was just no response.

For roaming I'd recommend 3 though. You can get the package whenever you want and it's unlimited use. Also for certain countries where they have a sister company it is entirely free.

[bella]

everyone will be doing that free with partner networks thing soon enough, especially with the impending eu rules, and having dealt with 3 from a retail point of view... well. i'd never buy services from them. ever

[Kpy]

Originally Posted by bella

unrelated and random - did anyone else not have a single glitch with mobile data this weekend? complete change from 2012. great one from orange france.

Yes my Orange data connection didn't go down once, from Sunday 8th to Monday 16th. I could hardly believe it when I still had a connection on Saturday early evening.