Tickets for the team presentation of next year’s Tour de France Grand Départ have gone on sale for as much as £99, despite the majority of previous events being held free-of-charge to the general public.
Taking place on the esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle, the premium ticket prices were not included in the original announcement of pre-sale tickets, only confirmation that tickets would be available from £27.
But an image shared on the Grand Départ’s website and on a map made available to pre-sale ticket buyers shows around approximately half of the tickets costing more than double that, with no concession pricing made available for the 90-minute ceremony, which is also livestreamed on social media and broadcast on television.
The arena, constructed every year for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo (which is presenting the ceremony) seats around 8,500 people. Announcing details of the ceremony earlier this week, organisers said “the opening ceremony will combine elite sport with an unmistakable Scottish welcome from The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, producers of one of the world’s greatest immersive events.
“Featuring Highland dancers, massed pipes and drums, and new music created specially for the occasion, the ceremony will celebrate Scotland’s culture and creativity while marking the start of an historic Grand Départ.”
The ceremony is taking place on Wednesday 30th June at 6:30pm, and will see each team and rider presented to the crowd of spectators, with select riders conducting interviews on-stage. This year’s presentation took place in front of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
> Scottish Tour de France Grand Départ budget trebles to over £10 million
Both that event, and the 2025 presentation in Lille were held free of charge. The last time the race started in the UK in 2014, the team presentation took place in front of around 10,000 spectators at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, though the riders also rode through the city centre beforehand. Tickets cost between £45 and £85 for the two-hour event.
In contrast, the 2007 team presentation in Trafalgar Square, London, was free to the public. No plans have yet been announced for a team presentation for the Tour de France Femmes, which begins in Leeds.
The government has invested £32 million in the UK’s Grand Départ bid for both the men’s and women’s Tour de France, whilst more than £65 million has been spent by respective devolved governments and local authorities. The spending makes the Grand Départ the most expensive cycling event ever held in Britain, eclipsing the £62 million spent on the World Championships in Glasgow in 2023, and among the most expensive Grand Départ’s in the Tour de France’s history.
In response to earlier criticism of the £27 ticket announcement, organisers told Jeremy Whittle that the ticketing reflects “a one-off event that fans won’t have seen before at a Grand Départ”. They added that the teams will ride from Holyrood Palace up the Royal Mile before reaching Edinburgh Castle, and that the road will be “completely unticketed”.
29 thoughts on “Tickets for Edinburgh Tour de France opening ceremony on sale for as much as £99, despite previous team presentations being free of charge”
Don’t bother then, get out & watch the racing instead!
It was a frustrating waste of time trying to get a ticket on Friday – 20 minutes in a queue before getting to the intro page, but with no option to select tickets! Had to refresh several times before a ‘buy’ button appeared, but there was nothing left by that time. It was still several minutes before a ‘sold out’ banner appeared. Even then, it was still possible to access the ‘buy’ button, despite zero availability.
Why is it that after decades of online ticket sales, pretty much no company or organisation manages to do it properly?
Oh well, I’ll just join the great unwashed lining the Royal Mile, hoping to catch a flash of a jersey between the viewers around me. At least I got to see the Giro presentation in Belfast for free, and I plan on viewing Stage 1 from a yet to be determined location.
(image: Landing page with no ‘buy’ button)
@Cayo if it was a ‘pre-sale’ then there would have been a limited number of tickets available. Try again on the 30th when they go on general sale.
@HoarseMann I considered that probability – Just expecting the prime ‘mid-priced’ seats to have already gone. Not to mention there’ll likely be an even bigger strain on the terrible ticketing platform…
I’ve applied to be a volunteer, or a “joy giver” as they are insisting on calling it.
I’m surprised at the prices, generally in Scotland there’s been good crowds anyway for events and they’ve been very inclusive. Last year the crit circuit for the final stage of the Women’s Tour of Britain in Glasgow was kept closed for 3 hours after the race for the public to ride on (mostly, there were still pedestrian crossings with marshals) closed roads, and a wee circuit for younger riders or anyone unable to manage the full circuit.
Yikes – don’t think I’d want to go anywhere near anything where ‘joy givers’ are in operation – all sounds a bit Black Mirror.
This year I went to see the Clitheroe Blackpool stage of the Tour of Britain Women where the girls had to wait around in the rain because of closed roads due to typical Lancashire banzai drivers crashing all over the place. Next year the men’s TdF comes close to me on the hills SE of Lancaster, which is lucky. Unfortunately, the TdF women Leeds to Manchester stage would involve a lot of miles on Death Highways through lots of towns, so that’s out
@wtjs I went to Clitheroe to watch them freezing their tits off in the rain after weeks of glorious weather. The crash on the lower slopes of Pendle was actually one of the police motorcycle marshals who slid out on the cattle grid on the bend at the foot of the straight climb to the Well Springs.
Same author writes an article on the costs of safety and one complaining about ticket prices for part of the event.
@RayG You seem to be suggesting hipocrisy or double standards from the author. But I see no opinion in this article whatsoever, only facts and objective comparison to earlier events.
Also, an opening ceremony is much different from an actual road stage.
@RayG Even if the ticket revenues for this event were all going straight into rider safety, which I’ll wager they’re not, there would still be perfectly relevant questions to be asked as to why the ordinary cycling fan was being stung for the cost rather than it coming out of ASO’s €30M profit from the Tour alone and the €130M it makes annually from its race portfolio.
@Rendel Harris I see the average cycling fan protested by snapping up the available tickets immediately.
@RayG In my experience many of the people who attend overpriced events like these aren’t genuine fans but people with high disposable incomes who like to go “for the experience” and to say that they were there. In any case, even if every ticket was sold to a dyed-in-the-wool cycling fan who was prepared to pay silly money because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the Depart in their home town/country, why would that make charging exploitative prices excusable?
@Rendel Harris Market forces, probably. But I’m no expert.
I realize some of us here love cycling, but what would make forfeiting extra income excusable? And even if the tickets were cheaper, how would you prevent extra demand so that people prevented from participating would not complain about being treated unfairly?
Why don’t we simply acknowledge TdF is not a public good, it is just another commercial event. With a bit of luck you can probably survive without it.
@tomlew Ah, good old “market forces”, the excuse for price gouging everywhere. Just because you can get away with charging stupid prices doesn’t mean you should or that it’s right to do so.
@Rendel Harris So where’s my new bike? I feel I deserve it, so I guess you owe me one now.
It’s always so easy to spend somebody else’s money, isn’t it?
@tomlew Yes, there’s absolutely no middle ground between disgracefully exploitative overcharging and giving things away for free, is there?
Just sit back and accept whatever private companies want to charge once they have achieved a monopoly of something and be happy, marvellous. Don’t complain or ask for fair pricing because that would be “spending someone else’s money”. It’s worked so well with water and power and fuel and rent, hasn’t it?
@Rendel Harris If only you’d read my previous comment more carefully…
I clearly justified my position by appealing to the concept of a public good. The TdF isn’t one, so why are you demanding to decide how the investor should spend their money?
That is exactly the middle ground you’re talking about — leaving control in the hands of the owners when the goods in question are not indispensable, while retaining control over essential ones.
BTW, monopoly? I imagine there are hundreds of other public events in most UK towns. Are you going to hire an army of public officers and introduce price regulation for rock concerts as well?
@tomlew The Tour is very much more than just a private event, it has taken nearly £100M in public money to come to the Uk. If it was self funding like a rock concert, fine, charge what you want, but having taken such a vast sum of money from the public and expecting their goodwill in terms of putting up with road closures etc said public have every right to be disgruntled at the attempt to sting them for even more to see part of an event that they’ve already paid for. As the article notes, other Grand Depart presentations have been free, why shouldn’t this one be? Your statement “it’s easy to spend other people’s money” would appear most apposite for ASO, with the addendum “then expect them to give you even more whilst you trouser the enormous profits.”
@Rendel Harris Not everything that is publicly (co-)funded is a public good and even fewer of those are indispensable. Just because it was partly funded from the public purse does not mean it’s meant to be free – and especially if there are other benefits for the public.
If we assume otherwise, there should be no obligation to pay for bus rides.
And let’s not fool ourselves – if the ceremony was free, the organisers would simply charge the local govt even more for the event overall. Of these two imperfect options I’d rather shift at least part of he burden on the rich spectators willing to pay for the tickets.
That’ll be totally funded from the public purse (who else do you think is paying?) and including a probable £10M+ fee to ASO (unconfirmed but in line with what they have charged other host cities in recent years). But hey, why not let them make another half a million or whatever at fans’ (who have already paid into the event through their taxes) expense when they’re already pocketing an enormous profit?
@Rendel Harris Exploitative? Didn’t realise they were being price-gouged for one of life’s essentials like food.
No, it’s a discretionary purchase.
@RayG What a peculiar worldview you have where nothing can be exploitative unless it involves an essential of life. Exploitative means unfairly or cynically to extort excessive profit from others by charging more than a product or service is worth, nothing in the definition mandates that it can only apply to certain types of product or services. Example: if I go to a concert and find that a glass of wine at the interval costs four times what it costs in the pub next door, then the concert hall is exploiting the fact that it has a captive audience and therefore being exploitative; the fact that I could, if I wished, go without doesn’t make it any less so.
@Rendel Harris A peculiar world view is demanding things should be free forever.
@RayG “Demanding things should be free forever”≠”Saying that a firm being paid £10M for allowing taxpayers to pay £100M to have their event in their country for a few days should not be charging extortionate prices for said taxpayers to view a part of the event that has previously been free of charge.”
“They added that the teams will ride from Holyrood Palace up the Royal Mile before reaching Edinburgh Castle, and that the road will be “completely unticketed”.”
Only because they can’t close the road and rob peds. Greedy, greedy bastards with their snouts in the trough.
@Daclu Trelub I’m also wondering if they’re putting matting down over the setts leading up to the esplanade – imagine the number of potential pre-race retirements if they try to ride slowly over them uphill if it’s bucketing down that night! 🫣
Of course they are charging – this is rip off Britain! It’ll be the City of Edinburgh council having something to do with it – they are a bunch of bandits!
@lorettocourt I don’t know anything about Edinburgh Council but this type of profiteering seems to me to have the fingerprints of ASO, motto “Drink the bottle dry then steal the bottle”, all over it.