Got $885? $885 can buy one ticket for the 2002 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies. The thrifty who want to attend the Olympics may want to purchase a biathalon ticket for 25 dollars.
Olympic tickets are still available for public purchase, but with limited selection and a very varying degree of price.
According to Mark Walker, Salt Lake Organizing Committee media relations manager, of the 1.65 million tickets originally available, about 275,000 remain. Many of the popular gold medal events such as men's hockey and freestyle aerials were the first to go, despite their high prices of over $200 a ticket.
SLOC hopes to sell $180 million on ticket sales alone. According to SLOC, no Olympics has ever sold out.
Walker said he doesn't anticipate selling every ticket, but there is no guarantee of getting an event ticket at the last minute.
"If people are interested in buying tickets, log on and get them now, because you never know when they're going to sell out," Walker said.
SLOC provides several options for people within the United States to purchase tickets.
Besides selling straight tickets, SLOC also sells what they call Olympic Experience Packages.
"Plan on spending a bit of cash for the OEPs," Walker said.
These packages contain tickets to three or four Olympic events and run from about $1000 to $1500. Some of the OEPs contain tickets to events such as ice hockey games, which are exclusively sold through OEP packages.
SLOC also hosts Internet auctions specifically for selling Olympic tickets.
"We had an auction for what we call Jack Nicholson seats," Walker said.
These auctions provide an even greater chance of obtaining some of the highest quality seats. The auction money earnings above the face value of the tickets will be donated to the 2002 Paralympics.
SLOC's ticket sales are primarily for U.S. residents. So far, only about 40 percent of the sales have come from Utah residents. People from other countries who want to attend the Olympics buy tickets through their country's national Olympic Committee.
Canada's Olympic committee enables Canadian Olympic fans to purchase biathalon tickets for $48 to $96 Canadian (about $30-$60 U.S.), and hockey events for $86 to $776 Canadian (about $50-$465 U.S.). Tickets for the Opening Ceremonies may be bought through Canada for $1,512 (about $90 U.S.)
As expected, on-line auction company eBay has a auctions available for Olympic tickets. Walker said SLOC isn't concerned that eBay will take away from SLOC's ticket sales goals.
Copyright Brigham Young University 12 Jul 2001
