Heading into this weekend's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quicken Loans 400, Michigan Int'l Speedway is seeing ticket sales pace 8-10% ahead of last year after introducing a bevy of party-oriented options for fans, including a large-scale post-race music festival and a party deck. MIS President Roger Curtis, who admitted the track "saw a bottoming out" in attendance last year, said this is the biggest increase MIS has seen at this point heading into a race since '06. In an effort to attract millennials and perhaps older yet still adventurous revelers -- whether they are race fans or not -- MIS earlier this year announced plans to hold Keloorah, a multiple-stage music festival, on the Friday and Saturday of each NASCAR race weekend. Track execs hope the festival more closely resembles Coachella or Bonnaroo than the typical musical performance at a sporting event. Fans get free access to Keloorah by purchasing a ticket for Sunday's Sprint Cup race. On top of performances that will span genres from country to indie to electronic, Keloorah also will have a video game arcade, tailgate games, foam and paint parties, and go-karts. During this weekend's races, MIS also will feature a party deck, called The Deck, where the Turn 3 grandstand used to be, that will have DJs, food and beverage, free Wi-Fi and other amenities. The track also will transform one of its campgrounds into an area called M50 that will feature more DJs and foam parties, and whose quiet hours do not start till 3:00am as opposed to midnight for all other MIS campgrounds. As for the uptick, Curtis said, "There's a lot of factors. Certainly the economy coming back in Michigan and people moving back to the state. Interest in NASCAR starting to rebound coming off of the Chase last year. But I think Keloorah has been a big part of it. There's just been a tremendous amount of buzz, particularly among the millennials, which is exactly who we were targeting."
EVENT DETAILS: Keloorah was created, developed and fully operated by MIS, which selects and promotes the acts. The event will be a six-figure investment for MIS, but the track is expecting new sponsorship revenue in the high five-figures for its first iteration, and low to mid six figures for the '16 installment. The event will be fully branded with participating companies that include Ford, Toyota, Red Bull and Budweiser. Ford will have a Ford owners hospitality area, where anyone with a Ford key or fob will be allowed entry. Toyota will have a small vehicle display plus a branded ferris wheel. Red Bull provided the DJs for the event and will have its energy drink be part of the signature drink concoction that will be sold there. Budweiser will have a branding presence, plus is the official domestic beer of Keloorah. More locally based companies Deets BBQ, Cottage Inn Pizza and Rave Associates, which is the largest distributor of Michigan craft beer in the state, also are on board for the event. Deets and Cottage Inn will be making food on site, and attendees will get their craft beers poured into a souvenir Keloorah-branded cup. Curtis estimated that 15,000-20,000 fans will be on hand at Keloorah this weekend. In an additional positive sign for MIS, the track is receiving press inquiries from non-traditional media that typically does not cover motorsports, such as music bloggers from Detroit. MIS has been promoting the festival via word-of-mouth efforts like sending street teams to nearby college campuses. Curtis said the ISC-owned track also purchased a "relatively small" digital buy around Keloorah, which he added is currently seeing a 245% ROI. Curtis said as of now, a lot of the valuations of how much the marketing of Keloorah is working is anecdotal. But he added, "We've had people literally stopping us on the street and saying, 'Hey, dude, we never would have come out to MIS for a NASCAR race, but this Keloorah thing is awesome; we're coming out.'"
JUST THE BEGINNING: MIS currently is in talks with 10 additional prospective sponsors, including six that do not currently invest with the track. MIS Senior Dir of Communications Sammie Lukaskiewicz wrote that most of these prospective sponsors "want to see what Keloorah looks like in June and then make a decision" for the upcoming Sprint Cup race in August -- the Pure Michigan 400 -- plus '16. Curtis added of why he expects this event to grow after its first iteration: "I think people are just going to be completely shocked and amazed at the transformation. ... When you walk into Coachella, you know it. When you walk into Lollapalooza, you know it. And you're going to walk into a festival you know is called Keloorah, and the activities we have lined up and the experiential staff as well as the branding element -- it's going to far exceed what any other track has ever done. And that's because we wanted this to be a standalone entity that just happens to be at the same location and time as a NASCAR event."
