I went last year to the Sunday finals, with my son.
It’s a great spectacle, but it is quite a hard spectate. They run one at a time, and there can be some quite big gaps between them. Most of the big features are quite a scramble/hike apart too, so you have to absolutely peg it once one rider has gone to get to the next best viewing spot.
It sort of worked out OK for us, we watched the finals start up at the cannon, then saw a bit at the lilly pad section, a couple come through the road gap, then made it to the arena and saw the last three come in. Strava’d the hike, it was 1,186ft from the car park to the cannon in elevation gain!
We queued for the meet n greet and got the obligatory autographs, and pics.
A good day, but I’ve seen it now and unless any mates mustered up interest for a car full, I probably will give it a pass this time.