As per the headline: If you are interested in attending this year’s epochal American-based World Cup weekend, at Wirth Park in central Minneapolis on February 17 and 18, 2024, ticket sales and registration for same open tomorrow morning, July 25, at 9 a.m. Central Time. You can find all relevant info and ticket links here.
If you just want to attend the races, and stand while you do so, that is free (but you still need to register). Thank Share Winter, which you can find out more about here, for covering the cost of this.
Your free option is called General Admission on the sign-up form. This level “Provides entry into the park during the event and multiple viewing opportunities around the course. No seating is provided.” Pretty standard fare if you’ve ever attended a ski race in this country, but with faster skiers to cheer for while you’re standing around and getting cold.
The FAQ on the tickets page states, “General admission tickets will allow race spectating along the course in designated viewing zones.” I haven’t yet seen a precise map of or plans for race-day logistics, but I would anticipate that you should expect access to much of the course on race day (with any level of ticket), but not all of it. On any high-level race course there also need to be dedicated space for coaches and visual media, access routes for medical teams, and so on, so there is an incentive to keep spectators from crowding every inch of the course.
The next level up is Grandstand seating. As the FAQ states, “Grandstand ticket holders will have access to reserved bleacher seating near the start/finish line (wristbands will also be required for access to the Grandstand), as well as race spectating along the course in designated viewing zones.” So you can go everywhere the general admission plebeians go, but you can also sit down at the finish — which, as someone who spends his fair share of time standing around in the cold at ski races and getting surprisingly drained from just standing, is not nothing.
Grandstand seating costs $75 for adults, and $35 for youths, per day.
Finally, there are a limited number of tickets available for the “VIP Spectator Experience.” Per this flier, “The VIP suites are uniquely located in the center of the race course, and the center of the action. From a top deck veranda, guests will enjoy multiple views of the course, with a front row seat to the final exciting downhill!”
You also get, again per the flier, a “Top deck veranda for an enhanced viewing experience,” “Heated indoor space,” “Full food and beverage service, including beer and mulled wine!,” and “Outdoor social area, complete with lounge seating, high tops, heaters, fire pits, and lawn games.”
(I do not know offhand if the “lawn games” will be present and available in Minneapolis in mid-February, or if the contracted luxury hospitality experience provider simply copy and pasted in their boilerplate from a more estival listing.)
The VIP Spectator Experience costs $500 per day. If you are thinking of buying this spectator package, you should act fast at 10 a.m. Eastern Time tomorrow/6 a.m. Alaska Time to make sure that you get what you want. You should then please be in touch with me (info at nordicinsights.news). I earned roughly $2,500 from my first year of running this website; if you are in a position to spend a thousand dollars on a weekend worth of ski race watching (which, to be fair, is a pretty great thing to spend your money on if you have it, respect), then you should help sponsor me so that I can afford to pay for a plane ticket from Canmore to MSP for these World Cup races and report on them for my readers. I am serious. Inbox and DMs are open.
— Gavin Kentch
