Escapade Silverstone Weekend

[paulguitar]

TheDeuce said:

paulguitar said:

That was the accommodation cost for two nights.

We spent £900 each altogether, which included the Escapade accommodation, race tickets, taxis, two dinners, a supermarket shop and a race programme.


You may remember that I had previously sold our F1 grandstand tickets due to concerns about superclipping... Concerns that were well founded, as it turned out! Anyway, we had about £3k in the pot from that, and we did the whole Escapade weekend on that and got a little bit back.


Very pleased we chose this instead of the GP.

I remember you worrying about selling or keeping those tickets. I'm extremely glad you sold them!

It's not on to tell another chap how to spend their hard earned money, but I knew these cars couldn't possibly deliver the goods through that complex of turns as they have done in previous seasons so I quietly had everything crossed that you'd sell!!

Yeah, all three of us were very comfortable with the decision to sell. I ended up going to the Grand Prix by myself on Friday and Saturday, but I selected locations where the battery nonsense was not an issue.

Overall, I think the Escapade weekend was good value for money. It's all about that view, which really has to be experienced to be believed. I'm already really keen to go back there.

[Castrol for a knave]

DeejRC said:

Pmsl, Christ, I didn t realise anybody took the container port at HMS Silverstone seriously!!! Let alone thought it was bespoke or futuristic!!!

A cpl or so yrs back I posted pics (I think) somewhere on here of that sthole being built. They are essentially posh ship containers plonked on top of each other at jaunty angles in a very prison block manner. They look absolutely horrific.

£110/night next door gets you Whittlebury Hall which is infinitely better.

Found one of the pics below

They're not shipping containers. They are bespoke modular units . Maybe not to everyone's taste, but not built on the cheap with the help of Maersk.

Each unit sold off plan and overall, the development has been well received.

[paulguitar]

Castrol for a knave said:

DeejRC said:

Pmsl, Christ, I didn t realise anybody took the container port at HMS Silverstone seriously!!! Let alone thought it was bespoke or futuristic!!!

A cpl or so yrs back I posted pics (I think) somewhere on here of that sthole being built. They are essentially posh ship containers plonked on top of each other at jaunty angles in a very prison block manner. They look absolutely horrific.

£110/night next door gets you Whittlebury Hall which is infinitely better.

Found one of the pics below

They're not shipping containers. They are bespoke modular units . Maybe not to everyone's taste, but not built on the cheap with the help of Maersk.

Each unit sold off plan and overall, the development has been well received.

The whole point of Escapade is the location and those astonishing views.

Quite how that poster managed to miss this so completely and, in an effort to be condescending, write such a foolish post is a mystery.

But hey, this is PH, which is home to all kinds of eccentrics...

[Sandpit Steve]

paulguitar said:

Sandpit Steve said:

£1,900 was your personal cost, or the cost of the whole apartment for the weekend?

That was the accommodation cost for two nights.

We spent £900 each altogether, which included the Escapade accommodation, race tickets, taxis, two dinners, a supermarket shop and a race programme.


You may remember that I had previously sold our F1 grandstand tickets due to concerns about superclipping... Concerns that were well founded, as it turned out! Anyway, we had about £3k in the pot from that, and we did the whole Escapade weekend on that and got a little bit back.


Very pleased we chose this instead of the GP.

That’s really cool, and not bad value for any event other than the GP. I think we all just have to accept that they can charge random numbers out of the phone book for F1 and the crowd will still show up; they had the largest attendance ever this year, and Sunday was the largest one-day ticketed crowd for any event in the UK this year.

So you get a proper bed to sleep in rather than a tent, and none of the hassle of transport on what’s a busy day in the local area, you can bring you own F&B in too. No-one needs to drive home, so you can all have a drink or six. Sounds like a plan!

Were the apartments sold out? Might seriously look at this for one event next year. The proper accommodation definitely makes it wife-friendly.

[paulguitar]

Sandpit Steve said:

paulguitar said:

Sandpit Steve said:

£1,900 was your personal cost, or the cost of the whole apartment for the weekend?

That was the accommodation cost for two nights.

We spent £900 each altogether, which included the Escapade accommodation, race tickets, taxis, two dinners, a supermarket shop and a race programme.


You may remember that I had previously sold our F1 grandstand tickets due to concerns about superclipping... Concerns that were well founded, as it turned out! Anyway, we had about £3k in the pot from that, and we did the whole Escapade weekend on that and got a little bit back.


Very pleased we chose this instead of the GP.

That s really cool, and not bad value for any event other than the GP. I think we all just have to accept that they can charge random numbers out of the phone book for F1 and the crowd will still show up; they had the largest attendance ever this year, and Sunday was the largest one-day ticketed crowd for any event in the UK this year.

So you get a proper bed to sleep in rather than a tent, and none of the hassle of transport on what s a busy day in the local area, you can bring you own F&B in too. No-one needs to drive home, so you can all have a drink or six. Sounds like a plan!

Were the apartments sold out? Might seriously look at this for one event next year. The proper accommodation definitely makes it wife-friendly.

It was not sold out for the Classic; we could see several balconies unoccupied over the weekend. It was very busy in the restaurant for dinner and breakfast, so I think a lot of them must have been occupied, although some of the dinner crowd would have been non-residents.


One thing that amuses me is that, even after paying £48,000 for Escapade weekend accommodation for the F1, you are still required to buy a general admission ticket for the event!

Edited by paulguitar on Monday 3rd August 09:54

[The-Wanderer]

Blib said:

bergclimber34 said:

And in the real world where people dont have that much money...

Ridiculous, petty, small-minded little post.

Congratulations.

What did you expect? No surprise whatsoever that Luke was the first person to respond, and in his usual pathetic style.

I hate Silverstone (sorry, Dumperstone)
I hate F1
I hate Ferrari WEC team
I hate my job
I hate other people who do nothing but sit in air conditioned offices
I hate anybody who is able to afford anything I can’t

It’s boring Luke, give it a rest

[CSR Performance]

That's a very useful review, many thanks for posting!

Price is much more reasonable than I was expecting.

Couple of questions if I may? Do you have vehicle access in and out over the weekend or once the meeting starts are you 'stuck' on site? Is there a televised feed from circuit cameras or any kind of leader/lap times board available?

Thanks!

[Sandpit Steve]

paulguitar said:

Sandpit Steve said:

paulguitar said:

Sandpit Steve said:

£1,900 was your personal cost, or the cost of the whole apartment for the weekend?

That was the accommodation cost for two nights.

We spent £900 each altogether, which included the Escapade accommodation, race tickets, taxis, two dinners, a supermarket shop and a race programme.


You may remember that I had previously sold our F1 grandstand tickets due to concerns about superclipping... Concerns that were well founded, as it turned out! Anyway, we had about £3k in the pot from that, and we did the whole Escapade weekend on that and got a little bit back.


Very pleased we chose this instead of the GP.

That s really cool, and not bad value for any event other than the GP. I think we all just have to accept that they can charge random numbers out of the phone book for F1 and the crowd will still show up; they had the largest attendance ever this year, and Sunday was the largest one-day ticketed crowd for any event in the UK this year.

So you get a proper bed to sleep in rather than a tent, and none of the hassle of transport on what s a busy day in the local area, you can bring you own F&B in too. No-one needs to drive home, so you can all have a drink or six. Sounds like a plan!

Were the apartments sold out? Might seriously look at this for one event next year. The proper accommodation definitely makes it wife-friendly.

I was not sold out for the Classic; we could see several balconies unoccupied over the weekend. It was very busy in the restaurant for dinner and breakfast, so I think a lot of them must have been occupied, although some of the dinner crowd would have been non-residents.


One thing that amuses me is that, even after paying £48,000 for Escapade weekend accommodation for the F1, you are still required to buy a general admission ticket for the event!

I’ve also just clocked that there were three of you in a three-bed apartment, so you could have bought wives and girlfriends (or close buddies in sleeping bags!) for little marginal cost should you have wished. So more like £600 a head all-in rather than the £900 you paid.

LOL at the compulsory GA ticket for the F1, you’d think for £48k they might include them! I had assumed that the place is actually outside the venue, so you needed a ticket if you wanted to go in.

[paulguitar]

CSR Performance said:

That's a very useful review, many thanks for posting!



Thanks.

CSR Performance said:

Price is much more reasonable than I was expecting.

Couple of questions if I may? Do you have vehicle access in and out over the weekend or once the meeting starts are you 'stuck' on site?

At the Classic, we would have been able to come and go as we pleased, although in our case we parked and didn't use the cars again until we left, as we were having a few beers. For the F1 weekend, I'd imagine that coming and going would be impossible.

CSR Performance said:

Is there a televised feed from circuit cameras or any kind of leader/lap times board available?

Thanks!

There are big TVs in the apartment, and they have YouTube, so we put on the racing there. The problem is that 'live' TV is actually a few seconds behind, so it was of limited use, really. As far as lap times, you can just hook up your own devices to the WiFI, and do it that way on whatever platform you usually use.

[paulguitar]

Sandpit Steve said:

I ve also just clocked that there were three of you in a three-bed apartment, so you could have bought wives and girlfriends (or close buddies in sleeping bags!) for little marginal cost should you have wished. So more like £600 a head all-in rather than the £900 you paid.

It's also possible to have the individual bedrooms configured as twin beds. So in 'our' apartment it's genuinely possible to get six blokes in there, if you don't mind sleeping two to a room.

Sandpit Steve said:

LOL at the compulsory GA ticket for the F1, you d think for £48k they might include them! I had assumed that the place is actually outside the venue, so you needed a ticket if you wanted to go in.

To get to Escapade, you drive through the main Silverstone entrance and then either left, passing Woodcote and Copse, or over the bridge to the infield and then another bridge over the Hangar Straight, then left and past the Porsche centre and up to Becketts. I suppose the requirement to buy an event ticket looks comically penny-pinching on F1 weekend, but makes more sense at 'normal' events.

[Castrol for a knave]

CSR Performance said:

That's a very useful review, many thanks for posting!

Price is much more reasonable than I was expecting.

Couple of questions if I may? Do you have vehicle access in and out over the weekend or once the meeting starts are you 'stuck' on site? Is there a televised feed from circuit cameras or any kind of leader/lap times board available?

Thanks!

The main leisure building has an open plan bar with monitors that, if I recall, have on site coverage and leaderboards for races.

[paulguitar]

Castrol for a knave said:

CSR Performance said:

That's a very useful review, many thanks for posting!

Price is much more reasonable than I was expecting.

Couple of questions if I may? Do you have vehicle access in and out over the weekend or once the meeting starts are you 'stuck' on site? Is there a televised feed from circuit cameras or any kind of leader/lap times board available?

Thanks!

The main leisure building has an open plan bar with monitors that, if I recall, have on site coverage and leaderboards for races.

Ah yes, good point. The 'Gallery' restaurant, which also has a viewing terrace:



We spent a couple of hours there before we could access our apartment.

[bergclimber34]

I guess posting here I am very well south of what a lot of people on here earn.

1900 quid is about my monthly wage, so perhaps that might explain the astonishment of the amounts some people are prepared to pay for stuff like this.

Not all of us earn hundreds of thousands a year, so it's not petty, or anything else it is simply shock at the levels of money some people earn.

[Pintofbest]

They are great, I m lucky to have a friend who owns one and have spent the last few years there - they come with GA tickets for all guests, parking etc and the food he arranged to be delivered to the house was amazing. As you put Paul, the views are outstanding and it s nice to be seeing it all from the balcony.

This was my view 20 mins before race start this year, having a G&T waiting for the afternoon tea to arrive, just before everyone piled out on the balcony! It s a very civilised way to spend the weekend!

[paulguitar]

Pintofbest said:

They are great, I m lucky to have a friend who owns one and have spent the last few years there - they come with GA tickets for all guests, parking etc and the food he arranged to be delivered to the house was amazing. As you put Paul, the views are outstanding and it s nice to be seeing it all from the balcony.

This was my view 20 mins before race start this year, having a G&T waiting for the afternoon tea to arrive, just before everyone piled out on the balcony! It s a very civilised way to spend the weekend!

Absolutely amazing to have the chance to be there for the F1 race! And a bonus from Silverstone that owners are furnished with race tickets. Given that they are actually living, at least some of the time, in the apartments, I don't suppose Silverstone has much option there.


Whereabouts is your friend's place? As you know, they run all the way from Becketts to Copse. I think that the one we had, right at the entry to Becketts, would be the exact one I would choose, had I had the chance to do so ahead of time. It was pot luck, and we got extremely lucky, but if/when I stay there again, I will call Escapade first to see which specific trackside places are available.

[Sandpit Steve]

bergclimber34 said:

I guess posting here I am very well south of what a lot of people on here earn.

1900 quid is about my monthly wage, so perhaps that might explain the astonishment of the amounts some people are prepared to pay for stuff like this.

Not all of us earn hundreds of thousands a year, so it's not petty, or anything else it is simply shock at the levels of money some people earn.

The price is for the whole apartment, for up to six people, so it’s £160 per person per night, and you can bring your own beer rather than paying £8 a pint for it.

Yes the campsite is going to be cheaper, but if there’s a group of you it’s not a million miles different in cost for an event other than the F1.

[Pintofbest]

paulguitar said:

Absolutely amazing to have the chance to be there for the F1 race! And a bonus from Silverstone that owners are furnished with race tickets. Given that they are actually living, at least some of the time, in the apartments, I don't suppose Silverstone has much option there.


Whereabouts is your friend's place? As you know, they run all the way from Becketts to Copse. I think that the one we had, right at the entry to Becketts, would be the exact one I would choose, had I had the chance to do so ahead of time. It was pot luck, and we got extremely lucky, but if/when I stay there again, I will call Escapade first to see which specific trackside places are available.

We were at end of Maggotts coming in to Becketts and are unsighted for the part directly outside the clubhouse. We do have a great view of Village to Wellington though as are second floor.

They are an absolute luxury which I could never afford but being there with the same bunch for the last few years has been amazing. Just dreading the day they decide to sell it!

Edit to add - might have been the same when you were there but for the F1 you can have the same number of day guests as night guests so one that sleeps 6 can also have 6 there just for the day and they also get tickets.

Edited by Pintofbest on Monday 3rd August 12:18

[TheDeuce]

bergclimber34 said:

I guess posting here I am very well south of what a lot of people on here earn.

1900 quid is about my monthly wage, so perhaps that might explain the astonishment of the amounts some people are prepared to pay for stuff like this.

Not all of us earn hundreds of thousands a year, so it's not petty, or anything else it is simply shock at the levels of money some people earn.

The £1900 was shared between several people. It could be shared by as many as six people, at which point it's not a shocking amount of money is it?

[StevieBee]

Pintofbest said:

Edit to add - might have been the same when you were there but for the F1 you can have the same number of day guests as night guests so one that sleeps 6 can also have 6 there just for the day and they also get tickets.

I was there on the Saturday and had the good fortune to be in Corporate Hospitality opposite. I counted several units with the full quota of 12 people and calculated that the cost per head was actually cheaper than Corporate Hospitality. But that assumes you've 11 mates willing to cough up what is a still a hefty amount to watch a GP! But if you run a company and want to really impress clients with how you spend their money (!) then I'd imagine Escapade offers something properly special.

[Inspire]

Beyond the slightly disappointing looking Premier Inn breakfast, that looks ace! What amazing views and definitely looks worth the money, particularly when split between 6! Life is for living!

Thanks

Rob