Formula 1® has undergone a profound transformation since being acquired by Liberty Media in 2017, and F1® hospitality has been at the forefront of this.
Having delivered Super Bowl 50 in 2016 in San Francisco, Keith Bruce joined hospitality firm Quint International (now Quint) to become president of F1® Experiences.
Bruce unpacks the mechanics of modern F1® hospitality and reveals how his team has reshaped the way fans engage with F1®, in the first of our The Race Business Spotlight interviews.
From the Super Bowl to F1®
Bruce tackled one of the highest-stakes events in global sports as CEO and president of the Super Bowl 50 host committee.
The committee leveraged the San Francisco location of Levi's Stadium to deliver what was the most technologically-advanced and philanthropic Super Bowl ever.
Tech giants such as Google, SAP, Apple and Intel were involved while more than $15million was raised for Bay Area charities.
"While it was the most stressful, it was the most rewarding," Bruce reflects.
Now, since 2017, he's been transforming the way fans from numerous backgrounds and brackets experience F1®.
Bridging the F1® hospitality gap
"Backpacker to the billionaire" is the adage Bruce uses to describe the hospitality offering available to F1® fans now.
He explains that when F1® Experiences launched in 2017, it gave itself a clear mandate in transforming the fan journey.
"It was important for us to offer a range of experiences, not just for the super wealthy, or for the backpacker. There's a famous phrase, 'backpacker to billionaire', in terms of the Formula 1® fanbase," he says.
"What could we offer with a grandstand ticket? What could they do on a Thursday night or a Friday night when the track is quiet? And we can give them access to places that prior to Liberty Media buying Formula 1®, those were closed.
"Those were not accessible to fans. So how do we open those things up? And that was really the goal. How do we make it easier as a sport, make the sport easier to understand, make it more accessible, demystify the sport a little bit, especially for new fans."
Why F1® lends itself to hospitality
Having delivered for fans at the Super Bowl, but also - through Quint - in the NBA, MotoGP™, Churchill Downs® horse racing complex, ATP tennis, and more, Bruce says that F1® holds a unique advantage over single-day sports when it comes to fan involvement.
"And I'd say the reason for that is we're dealing with three days, not three hours. In a Premier League match, experiences are maybe an hour before or an hour after the match. But during those two hours when there's action on the pitch, people don't want to be bothered," he says. "It's total focus. NFL game, it's the same.
"But when you're talking about three or four hours versus three solid days, you have a perfect platform to introduce experiential economy into the event, which is what F1® Experiences does. You have a perfect opportunity for F1® to innovate with their hospitality offerings and create maybe a different experience each day for a guest."
The rise of the experiential F1® fan
"The one thing that a millennial, a younger fan, wants more than anything, are experiences," says Bruce.
"They'll pay for experiences; they won't necessarily pay for the champagne and the hospitality. And so we realised that we had an opportunity to grow our fanbase among the millennials and the younger fans by introducing the Fan Package,” he says.
F1® Experiences' hospitality offerings evolve from track to track. For example, in Mexico, the Superfan package includes tickets to the 2026 NBA Mexico City game; in Monaco, the Monaco Triple Crown package provides fans one day in the Paddock Club, one day on a yacht, and one day in the Gordon Ramsay Terrace; in Melbourne, the Flyer package includes a helicopter tour of the city.
Immersion is key. Private pitlane walks, where fans can witness mechanics working on their F1® cars, sometimes past curfew, are the kind of thing a younger fan "craves" according to Bruce.
"They don't want to just sit in the grandstand for three days and watch, right? They want to do. And that's where F1® Experiences really comes into play."
Interest has risen across the board with a diverse range of clients that, surprisingly, includes families and millennials - with an ever-growing female demographic.
Bruce has seen people from all walks of life immerse themselves in F1® - plus its support series - through F1® Experiences' hospitality offerings.
"I think one thing that keeps me coming back is seeing the smiles on the faces of these customers on the Friday after they come back from their first experience," he says.
"We're making magic moments here. We're delivering something super special for these customers and these clients, and so for me, I think that's what keeps us going, what makes it so much fun.
"At the end of the day, we want a customer to fall in love with going to a Formula 1® race and then stay in love with it."