Tickets for all events, including the opening and closing ceremonies and gold medal hockey and curling games, go on sale at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific via vancouver2010.com. Prices range from $25 for women’s hockey preliminaries and cross-country skiing to $1,118 for best seats at the Feb. 12, 2010 opening ceremony in B.C. Place Stadium. Service charges and delivery fees are extra.
VANOC vice-president of ticketing and marketing Caley Denton said there would be 5,000 tickets available for each of the opening and closing pageants and 140,000 throughout the entire schedule of sport events, including hockey and curling preliminaries. He said there would be another ticket sale on a day to be determined in the fall, although with a smaller quantity.
Sales will be first-come, first-served after users are randomly selected to enter the ordering website from a virtual waiting room. Orders are limited to four or eight tickets, depending on the event. Each transaction is limited to four events.
Denton would not comment on specific inventories, but said there would be “hundreds” available for the Feb. 28, 2010 gold medal men’s hockey game at General Motors Place. The arena will be known as Canada Hockey Place at Games-time.
An undisclosed amount of tickets will be available for the nightly B.C. Place Stadium medals awards concerts, but VANOC is not ready to reveal the featured entertainers. Similar nightly events at the Whistler celebration plaza will go on sale at a later date.
Denton advised those who applied for last fall’s ticket lottery to ensure their account is active. New customers should set-up an account before late June 5 when the ticketing website goes offline to prevent pre-sale “camp outs.”
“People do need to be patient,” Denton said.
Visa is the only payment card accepted, though cheques and money orders will be allowed.
VANOC sold $94.7 million to the Canadian market last fall and forecasts $262 million in overall ticket revenue, including sale of Paralympics tickets and luxury suites.
Denton wouldn’t say how many tickets were returned by recession-weary Olympic family clients,
“We are seeing lots of demand from sponsors,” he said. “It’s been pretty smooth.”
The graphic design of tickets will be revealed next week. Tickets will be printed and sent to purchasers this fall after precise seat locations have been determined.
