Attendance this year

[Great Dane]

2013 Le Mans 24 Hours - a year of record audiences!

The Le Mans 24-Hours anniversary race, marred by the tragic death of Allan Simonsen, was a huge popular success with record audiences.


Spectators at the circuit

- 245 000 spectators at the circuit, 5 000 more than in 2012.
- 24 000 spectators on the first day of practice (Wednesday 19th June), 47 000 the second day (Thursday 20th June).
- 23 000 spectators at the test day (Sunday 9th June).
- 15 000 spectators at the Earth, Wind & Fire experience’s concert featuring Al McKay on Saturday 22nd June.




- 1 405 journalists from 42 different countries (written press/radio/photographers/new media) accredited (1 345 in 2012).
- They represented 652 different media.


Television

- 1 178 television personnel, including 430 for televised production, compared to 914 in 2012.
- 30 international television networks bought the rights to show the 2013 race (23 in 2012).
- They covered 190 countries (same as in 2012).
- They enabled 707.3 million viewers to follow it (579.75 million in 2012).
- 126 TV commentary teams from all over the world were at Le Mans (85 in 2012).


Records for the race TV broadcasters

- Eurosport: new record audience with 24.4 million TV viewers over the coverage as a whole (17.7 million during the race) on the Eurosport and Eurosport 2 channels throughout Europe for a total of 44 hours broadcasting.
- France Télévision: a big increase. Sunday 23rd June, France 3 doubled its audience compared to 2012 with a peak of 2.3 million at the finish (16,7 % of the PdA). On all the broadcasts during the Le Mans 24 Hours France 2 and France 3 attracted an average of 1.3 million TV viewers (11.1% of the PdA), a significant increase compared to 2012. (the global audience figures will be announced at a later date).


Web TV

- 5 743 822 connections (3 200 000 in 2012).
- A peak of 111 570 simultaneous connections at 13 h 00 on Sunday 23rd June (new DailyMotion record, the previous ones were the recent election of the new Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and David Beckham’s Parisian press conference)!
- 531 580 connections came from mobile equipment (tablets, Smartphones, including 11 000 simultaneously).
- WebTV spectators connected from 70 countries. After the French, the Japanese and the Americans had the most connections, and the 70th country on the list was Uruguay with 1 032 webspectators.


Social networks

- 149 453 fans on the Le Mans 24-Hours Facebook « ACO Officials ». (90 000 in 2012)
- 13 700 000 impressions of Facebook contents either on the ACO wall or the fans wall.
- 370 000 : Number of tweets on the race (132 000 in 2012)
- 147 500 clicks.
- 55 550 subscribers on the French and English Twitter accounts #LM24. (25 000 in 2012)
- 627 messages sent by the ACO to its followers during the week of the Le Mans 24 Hours.


Internet sites

- The internet sites 24h-lemans.com, lemans.org and lemans-tv.com (outside Web TV) received 2 353 000 visits during the Le Mans 24-Hours weekend (1 456 000 in 2012) .
- 562 817 connections from mobile equipment (tablets and Smartphones) compared to 164 910 in 2012.


On the radio

- The Radio France Group, partner of the event mobilised more than 60 people to cover the race from the circuit.
- 30 hours live were broadcast over the race weekend including nine devoted to the night of the event (from 21 h 00 to 6 h 00) put out on the 43 stations France Bleu in France.
- France Bleu Maine broadcast over 100 reports devoted to the race and France Bleu National fifteen.
- 30 live reports and 40 flashes were broadcast by France before, during and after the race.


and no mention of Radio Le Mans' figures

[muppetdave]

Despite this and I'm not doubting their figures, I honestly felt it was quieter around the circuit throughout the race.

Barring a very minor hold up in Arnage, we left our campsite at our usual time around 10am on Saturday and were in the circuit in record time.

[NotNormal]

Interesting, because as above, our group also said on numerous occasions we thought it was a lot quieter this year and that includes both within the circuit and in the town centre for the parade.

[Output Flange]

No chance there were only 15,000 people for Earth, Wind & Fire - I had to get 4 beers from the bar to the front of the crowd, and I counted at least 107,000 on my way.

[fatboy18]

I thought it was much quieter this year!

[Irish]

How many thousand wallets half inched?

[A10ARF]

Output Flange said:

No chance there were only 15,000 people for Earth, Wind & Fire - I had to get 4 beers from the bar to the front of the crowd, and I counted at least 107,000 on my way.

I agree with this, it was massively attended...

[Mutley]

fatboy18 said:

I thought it was much quieter this year!

But was number or noise? I certainly noticed that people were less noisy this year

[LoudV8]

There were plenty of unused pitches in Houx.

[The Leaper]

We were in the ACO tribune this year for a change (back to La Sarthe in future, I think). It was very noticeable that the pits tribune opposite was never full and that it was generally very empty other than at the start and finish. It could be because it was really cold over the race period and people in that tribune would have been feeling the full blast, whereas we were quite well protected and out of the wind.

I do think the numbers were down considerably this year. Other than at feeding times, access to The Village was not bad at all and walking the circuit was not the usual crush.

Strangely, the numbers on the banking on the inside at Tetre Rouge were the most I've ever seen on Saturday evening.

R.

[McSam]

If we're using the principle that "more than 2012 = record", then yes, otherwise half those figures are nowhere close to records!

I thought it was pretty par for the course most times, though when I was around Dunlop/Tertre Rouge in the small hours I remember thinking it was busier than I expected. Last visit 2007.