The idea of having a concert at a Grand Prix is certainly not new, but the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) brought this concept to a whole new level when it introduced the Super Stage in 2015. Since that year, visitors of the F1 race in Austin have been treated by first-class performances of world-renowned artists including Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Ed Sheeran. This year, Sting took the stage on Friday evening, while Eminem is set to entertain the crowd at the Texas racetrack on Saturday.
On Thursday, Autosport Business meets up with Glynn Wedgewood, Senior Vice President of Music & Entertainment at COTA, in his office located in race control. It’s actually one of his three offices out of which he operates during the Grand Prix weekend.
“I also have one at the amphitheatre and one at the Super Stage”, he explains, before confirming with a smile that having three offices can be an absolute nightmare when he forgets to bring something from one location to the other.
Wedgewood’s office on the third floor of race control is quite different to all the other workspaces we pass on our way up there. The room is filled with music memorabilia, while one of the walls is completely decorated with concert posters. Up till the moment we sit down and the mobiles are set to silent mode, Wedgewood’s phone has been beeping non-stop.
“This is actually my mobile being calm”, he grins, before explaining he has people running errands in the city to make sure all the items listed on the riders will be present for when the artists arrive. “Sorry, I have to approve the purchase of some very expensive cigars for someone”, he says, before stowing his phone away.
Wedgewood is a former touring musician from Bishop Auckland, a small town in northeast England, who settled in Austin in 2005. He worked for clubs and festivals before joining the Circuit of the Americas in 2015. That same year the Super Stage was born.
“I worked on the very first time we built what we call the Super Stage”, he recalls. “That was for the X Games when they were here. And we built it for Metallica and Nicki Minaj. And then, the same year, we decided to introduce it on the Sunday of the F1 weekend, so we had Elton John.”
The 2015 United States Grand Prix was a memorable event for several reasons. Wedgewood: “I don't know how much you remember about that weekend and how wet it was, but it was torrential weather. It was absolutely horrible. We experienced some heavy, heavy rain. The Friday and the Saturday were really rough. Very thankfully it cleared up on the morning of race day. The track dried out and we had a fantastic race. But being in that much rain and cold probably sucked a lot of people's strength. But we still had a great turnout for Elton John.”
In 2016 Taylor Swift played the Super Stage. “This was a really pivotal year for us. I feel we as a company, under the leadership of Bobby Epstein, were the ones to get ahead of that”, Wedgewood says.
“At the time F1 was okay. It was something that was for gearheads and race fanatics. And the market was okay at that time. But in 2016, that was when we really pivoted. We went from ‘it’s all about the race and that’s it’ to ‘let’s include some more people’. So we had Taylor Swift play, which opened up a whole new audience to us.”
At the same time, the full entertainment programme of the event was kicked into a higher gear. Wedgewood: “We introduced the American Soundtrack stages, which are several stages around the track that are operated throughout the day. And we introduced the villages with all of the culinary stuff, experiential stuff and activations like line dancing lessons and all that. So 2016 was a really, really important year for us. We changed a lot of things and introduced a ton of new elements so the event wasn't purely race-centric. And it opened it up for everyone.”
And from there, COTA never looked back. “It was a game changer, that year. And we've just continued to build on it. We love people coming here and just being immersed for the weekend. So the campus, for example, the folks who move out here on the Thursday. They've got everything they could possibly need on their doorstep. I mean, they're going out during the day watching the practice sessions and races, and we've got talent, entertainment and bands going all around the property during the day as well. And at night, as you know, we've got our headliners playing the Super Stage. So there are really headliners playing all day long in different capacities, be it on the race track, be it on a small stage, be it on the Super Stage. We just love having people have a lot of fun.”
No rinse and repeat
On the process of selecting and booking the artists for the Super Stage, Wedgewood comments: “It varies. Like there's never any kind of rinse and repeat, cut and paste kind of process to it. We'll look at what's going on, who's on tour and available and who might be a good fit. And once Bobby's given his input and looked at that, I'll take a closer look at our shortlist. And then you start approaching bands and artists.”
“Like Eminem’s a prime example. We weren't looking specifically at Eminem for this year. These conversations started a while back and we were looking at trying to make the Eminem show work last year. That didn't work out with his work schedule, but those conversations continued and here we are: he's here this year. His only North American show. I think he hasn't played since 2019 on tour. And he's just dropped an album like two months ago. This is massive, you know. It's a really big coup. So we're all really excited. So that's kind of in a nutshell how we go about it.”
“But as far as how do we get those artists: I think reputation and word spreads. I mean, it's a very small community, the music community. So those artists who we've had, they have a blast on that stage. They get in and they walk into this amazing venue, which still to this day blows any production manager's mind. So we have all these race activities going on, then the track will go cold and within an hour we flip it to a standing room pit. This is not done anywhere else. It's something really unique. But it was planned for even before we did our first show here. That lawn was purposely built with a raked angle. Bobby did that because he knew that at some point he wanted to host concerts there. It's a dedicated lawn for that. So yeah, it worked out OK.
There has been a wide array of artists playing the Super Stage over the last ten years. From Stevie Wonder to Green Day and from Billie Joel to Usher. Wedgewood emphasises it’s not about the genre. “I think there are only a handful of artists in the world who can headline a venue and an event this big. So when you start looking at that pool and when you start looking at that list of twenty to thirty performers who are at that level - be it a hip-hop show or a rock and roll show or a pop show - the genres might be different but the one thing they have in common is a lot of people love them.”
An artist Wedgewood would have love to have had on the Super Stage, is Daft Punk.
“They were on our radar for the longest time," he adds. "We really wanted to make that happen. For several years we looked at it. We talked and tried, but their heads just weren't in that space. They were into the film score direction aspect of things. It was a shame we couldn’t make that one work. We really wanted it to.”
Unique complexities
Having to organize these big concerts at a full-blown F1 race event, is quite a task. Asked about the specific challenges this brings, Wedgewood says: “There are certain elements which there is no way around, and one of the biggest things is track activity. Whereas like any given concert, you're going to load in your gear, you're going to tech check everything, you're going to sound check. As you know, we're open to the public. So we've got the stage in full view. So we have to work around the track schedule, even for something as simple as audio. Like you're not going to check how a PA sounds or if something's mic'd up correctly with a car zooming right past you.”
“So I don't know if it's a challenge. I think it's just something that comes with the territory, right? And we've done this for so many years now. It's just that you have to inform the personnel who are working on the tour side and that you have to let them know: ‘Hey, this is the environment. This is how it works. This is what you're walking into. This is how we can do it. This is what happens.’ As long as you give people the information before rather than surprising them, then you're OK.”
“So because of that challenging schedule, we're limited to what we can do. Really simple things like, let's say, on Friday or Saturday you have the F1 Experiences trucks, whilst we’ve got audio, light and video cables in the air, we can't drop those until these semis are finished conducting their tours. So once that track fence comes out, we would love to drop them and get going. But the reality is we have to allow up to an hour for us to flip that track for those vehicles to get past. So yeah, not really challenges. That's just part of the environment.”
Unchanged directive
Although the audience for F1 has grown significantly in the US over the past years and, for ticket sales, the line-up of performing artists might have become of less importance, COTA’s entertainment approach hasn’t changed. Wedgewood: “It's really about the experience, so that doesn't change things for us. We still want to be the best, we still want to do the biggest events and we still want to wow people. Even if the popularity of F1 has grown because of the Drive to Survive series, which has absolutely happened. That's great. But it doesn't change our directive. We're going to still try and produce the biggest, best, funnest events on the calendar.”
Is this mentality also required, because Austin has competition from other events in the US nowadays, with Las Vegas and Miami having joined the F1 calendar in recent years? “No. I think it's good. It's healthy to have the other races introducing even more people. And at the end of the day, we’re the only purpose-built F1 racetrack in North America. The other events are great. I have been to Miami and I checked out the Vegas race last year. They're fine events. But nothing compares to having a purpose-built campus to get people to camp out here, stay the weekend and indulge in everything.”
Wedgewood is looking forward to Eminem’s performance on Saturday evening. “This Saturday is going to be immense. We really think it's going to be the biggest attendance on a Saturday ever. The love for Eminem… It went off the charts when we announced that. This is something really special. So yeah, looking forward to it.”
