America's Cup in Portsmouth 2016. Where is best to view ashore?

[bdh198]

We enjoyed the racing on the Saturday of the 2015 Portsmouth Louis Vitton America's Cup (the only day of racing as it turned out), and we watched the racing afloat from the Spectator area in the Solent. However, next year we want to try and get a better view of the racing, and experience the atmosphere ashore.

I've been looking at the ticket options available and was interested in any views anyone who watched the racing ashore this year might have.

There are obviously the Grandstand tickets (currently about £60), then there are the General Admission Race Village tickets (currently about £25) and finally there is the free admission area on Southsea common (which as a resident I can take advantage of). I've heard the views and experience in the free admission area was pretty bad this year. I am therefore thinking of going for the General Admission tickets, but what is the view of the race area like? And what is the experience like in that area (food, seating, coverage of the racing on screen etc)? I've heard the race commentary this year was pretty poor quality, there was limited seating and long queues for food.

Would those of you who went this year pay the extra to get a Grandstand ticket, or is it better to avoid the additional costs and stick with the free admission?

 

[richardbrennan]

I did not go into the grandstand, but the free admission area was a total waste of time if you wanted to view the racing. All you could see was the boats go by leaving Portsmouth Harbour. The general admission ticket was much better and you could walk all along the shore although they did keep the area immediately in front of the VIP boxes clear once the action started. I viewed the racing on Saturday from the Gosport Ferry and could recommend that as an option, it took up station about half way along one side of the course and the elevation off the upper deck gave a better perspective of what was going on rather than being at sea level. However, following criticism of this year's event, I believe they are going to make changes for 2016.