(FEEDBACK) FORMULA D Long Beach

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(FEEDBACK) FORMULA D Long Beach

Please post your feedback on this thread

[captainNEO]

not sure if it was the ONLY exit, but when i left the exit/entrance was thru the same gate (like 6ft. wide space...).

next time separate the entrance/exit.


for the record, i did leave EARLY. maybe after the event there were other gates opened...

[Hach1r0k1d03]

it was hot Hot HOT!!! formula d should pick up another sponsor to put in canopies on top off ALL the stands. but then i guess $5 lemonade sales would go down. hmmm....

[Jim @ FD]

Please give us some feedback. But please keep in mind this is the craziest event in terms of logistics for us; street closures, lots of police, etc. = madness.

And where did the heat wave come from?! Help us get that sponsor to create a dome over the track!!

Thanks everyone for kicking off season 5 with a bang!

[splicer]

Long Beach was freaking awesome!

[Slapshotnerd]

Jim - overall, this event ran very very well!!

Some complaints I had rectified themselves during the day. Having to boot all the 'wristband' people from the main grand stand seemed silly until all the paying customers showed up and PACKED the big grand stands! I couldn't BELIEVE how many people were there!

I thought the jumbo tron was kinda pointed the wrong way (i liked it more in the corner, pointing towards turn 10/11) but with all the people in the general admission area, the only way they could see it is if it was where it was.

My ONLY complaint is that there still weren't enough photo holes, and they weren't in the right places. We needed a bunch more holes over on the 'peninsula' on both sides (a few on the finish line side would have been cool, there were NONE over there).

+ Having Rob there was awesome, nice change of pace from previous 'opening ceremonies'.
+ The vendor row was PACKED! Lots of free shwag, lots of cool shwag to buy at a reasonable price, etc.
+ Although I got sunburned, the weather was GORGEOUS!!
+ The balance of spectator availability to the cars / drivers / vendors to crowded-ness of areas that media / hard cards should be excluded was awesome (from a media perspective)
+ the overall presentation was top notch! Commercials and plugs for the sponsors, downtime to rest / grab a drink or stop by the bathroom, but everything seemed to move nearly perfectly as scheduled, and didn't feel 'dragged out' or 'rushed'.
+ the staff was all very helpful and available, yet stern on rules when necessary.
+ the competition was great! There were easily 20 drivers who showed today that they deserve to hit the podium, and I wouldn't be surprised if we have 10-12 drivers who find a podium this season. This is what motorsport competition is about!!

FD should be very proud of this event. I know they went through a lot of headaches, pains, and issues, but they were nearly transparent to the fans and everyone involved. Good job!

[MonkeySlide]

Please give us some feedback. But please keep in mind this is the craziest event in terms of logistics for us; street closures, lots of police, etc. = madness.

And where did the heat wave come from?! Help us get that sponsor to create a dome over the track!!

Thanks everyone for kicking on season 5 with a bang!

In my opinion things went pretty well for the kind of chaotic circumstances that you guys were in.

I really only have three gripes/suggestions.

1. Communication between the judges stand and the starting line seemed sketchy: There were times where it was pretty obvious J-Rod wasn't aware of when the flagger was going to "send it" He would be in the middle of engaging the audience's attention on some subject and all of a sudden a run would be half over before he has a chance to call it.

There was even one instance where it seemed like the judges were caught off guard. That can be a BIG problem. With the subtlties of judging if they miss the slightest nuance to a run it can really throw the results. There should never be a situation where unreliable communication between the flagger and the judges can affect the outcome of a tandem battle.

2. The stands across the street: I'm not sure how much the tickets costs to sit in the stands across the street but the view there was pretty bad..even for cheap seats. The knee jerk reaction is to ask you guys to get another vision board for them but I understand that such things cost money and every business has to stick to a budget.

So I offer a low cost alternative...Stop pointing the only vision board at the grandstand that already has the best view!

I get that they probably paid a little more than everyone else..but with or without the vision board they have the best view hands down. And if you want to take your advertisers into account there was WAY more people in no man's land across the street than there was in the middle grand stand.

If you point it so that the peeps across the street can see it..they feel better about their seats and the sponsors get more value for their money...to me it seems like a win/win.

3. Yellow wristbands: I'm not sure who else got those yellow bands besides non-photo pit media but there was certainly a lot. Sure I didn't ask for photo-pit media access (we had someone else in there getting the action shots) but I'm still a journalist and I still have a camera. It would have been nice to get some "insider" shots.

My wrist band couldn't get me to the judging canopy, and I couldn't even get into the winner's circle at the end.

Just because a media person isn't specifically carrying a bazooka camera lens and subjecting themselves to hours of tire jizz bukake doesn't mean they shouldn't have access to areas that can help them put together a good story.

Don't get it twisted we GREATLY APPRECIATE the accomodations but just because a journalist isn't toting a few digital SLR's doesn't mean he/she shouldn't be allowed more than for the most part "general" access. It's not a HUGE deal but it just would have been nice to get into the aformentioned places for a few moments to get some shots and possibly some sound bites from judges/drivers/VIPs


Wow...ok so those "three gripes" got kind of long...sorry about that..I dont mean to sound like a pain in the you know what but this is a feedback thread afterall.

Despite what the tone of this post might seem..I really do feel like this year went expoentially better than the previous Long Beach events! Crowd control was great every thing flowed well..there wasn't much confusion. Plenty of vendor booths, lots to do. It was great!

Keep up the good work!

[Sebring]

The event was all-round awesome. My only issue was with the staff in charged with seating. They did an awful job at making sure people were sitting where they were supposed to (people were sitting in our seats).

So I was left standing against the fence until the top 8 before we could find a seat.

[eomund240]

Comments toward the even as a whole, it was really good despite the heat. honestly this year had the best driving I've seen at long beach yet (and I've been going since year 1).

I only had 2 problems with the even. The biggest was at the end. We were told that they'd be announcing the winners at the very end, we waited around for the end and the staff kicked us out, so I'm still not positive who won, especially since it was a really close match.

My second beef sort of follows my previouse statement but it's far from your guys fault. The Long Beach staff was inconsiderate and rude in many occations. And the parts they were supposed to be running was shaky at best. The example I'll use is they packed the stands so full people were sitting in the isles (which is technically illegal to begin with), but when the end came around and we were waiting for the announcement of the winner they very rudely told us to go. I know it's far from your guys fault but it still pissed me off.

All in all though, this was one of the best Long Beach events I've been too. Looking forward to Irwindale (October is too freaking far away )

Oh, and the canopy idea isn't a bad one

[Bebop]

This is coming from a fan

not a photographer

not a journalist

but a simple paying fan

This event, was pretty wack.

I will make this short and sweet, seating just plain sucks. I got a section 17 sweet but all my friends were sitting in section 21 (they shouldn't have even been there) so I sat in that section. You guys, I can barley see turn 9 due to some stupid scion tents, saw turn 10 thankfully and 11 was not viewable. And this was awesome compared to some people in sections 22 and 23. All of drastic things happened on turn 11 and I couldn't figure out what happened because they moved the jumbotron directly to the rear of us and you cant hear nothing from the speakers in our area.

Second of all, it was hot as all hell. There were many people complaining about how they are forced to buy 3.50 waters and 5.00 lemonades just to be hydrated. I know smart people should bring water, but geese compared to other tracks that have water fountains and real bathrooms this one was harsh as hell!!! At least buy a couple pallets of water and hand them out. This isn't my first time to long beach, but the changes you guys made are definitely the worst. This is definitely not a fans track at all.

Its kind of like me throwing a party, inviting 30 people but only letting 8 people inside to enjoy the music and drink the beer. And having the rest of the people outside, with almost no music and watered down Pabst. This is the first time ever I felt I could have spent my hard earned money on something else when it comes to formula d. This setup may be good for road racing which is non stop action but for drifting with a course so short you get 16 seconds of action and 5 minutes of nothing this is definitely not going to cut it. I took many friends, a lot of them new drifting fans and they were disappointed.

And the whole " you gotta go to the podium to find out who is the winner" BS, that needs to end.... now!!!!

And let me remind you, I am no noob. Been going to drift events since 04. I know what to expect and not to expect


I like to give props for the drivers.

Big up for maxxis for putting up the great fight, forsburgs comeback was amazing. He is definitely a cut above, congrats too Ryan for killing it in the new car, and for JTP for getting top 16 his first event.

Kyle, hard work pays off. Congrats, so smooth, so stealth....

Drift Speed, please for the sake of American drifting. Campaign the hell out of haruguchi. Even though he didnt repeat last years victory he showed a lot of improvement in his line and consistency. Even though it cool to see him drifting at 90 degree angle, he seemed so much faster and so much more precise in the S15.

D mac seems to have gotten his soul back, right on!!!

Thats all I gotta say about that.

[Nixon]

just a couple things

the seating...for general admission, i felt bad for them, they couldnt see anything, and the big screen was pointed towards grandstand 18 which had the best view anyways (i was on it), should have been pointed to the people on the other side of the hairpin

the big screen...you should really have better communication with whomever controls it, it was always off of what was going on, it would show run 1 run1 instead of run 1 run 2, it seemes they couldnt decide on whether to show the scores or to show the cars coming down the track or J-rod and the judges...i think having some sort of system like show judges, then scores, then cars when they start, this also goes with communication between judges and start line, sometimes the cars would start before the judges or the big screen were ready for em

i really should have worn sunscreen

i was expecting to pay plenty for food so i didnt really mind, but the location of the food vendors was bad, the long lines just made walking around difficult and some lines even started going into the area where the cars would go through, through the main gate to get to the grandstands, maybe if they were with all the other vendors it would have been way better

overall, really good event, compared to irwindale i think the driving was better, more exciting but yeah seating sucked for some people

[Nixon]

oh yeah and the photog almost getting rear ended by Dmac without even realizing it...too funny

and dang that corvette was loud

[bk3896]

I didn't like how it was on Cambodian New Year. =(

[deadpirate]

as a vendor.

i know formula D cant do much about this.

but the staff that got hired to "control" the crowd, was indeed very rude. not allowing vendors into the winners circle to watch. chris forsberg's dad wasent even allowed in, and was told by one staff member "i dont care who you are"

i would say find a different company, or brief them more to be less rude to vendors/journalists.

water being 3.50 is ridiculous. especially with the higher temps.

i was going back and forth between running a booth and doing media work for takatori and super autobacs, so i was really busy, but from the media side, if a camera person is doing internal video work for a company, why can they not film the tandem runs. i was told that even though i was filming specifically for super autobacs internal use, i could not film tandem, and i would like to know why.

[MonkeySlide]

if a camera person is doing internal video work for a company, why can they not film the tandem runs. i was told that even though i was filming specifically for super autobacs internal use, i could not film tandem, and i would like to know why.

I can answer this one for you.

The reason why they don't want you to film the tandem runs is because the video rights to that part of the event is owned by ESPN. When you watch Formula D on ESPN all they show is from the top 16 on and Im sure they paid a lot of money to have exclusive rights to that.

I'm not saying that you would do this but when people film things even if its just an "internal" thing they still have a way of getting out. And if things like that happen it devalues what ESPN paid for.

Back in the G4 days if you talked to their producers and let them know what the footage would be used for where it would be used and when they would usually try to accomodate you.

I'm not sure if you just tried to film the tandem when you were there or discussed it with a representative before the event but perhaps someone from Formula D or their PR agency can put you in touch with the ESPN people to see if something can be worked out.

P.S. Nice booth