Your ticket to the Olympics
Monday, October 15th, 2007Attention all fans of the Olympic Games. Mark your calendar for October 11, 2008. That’s when tickets will go on sale for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver/Whistler, February 12 to 28, 2010.
Ticket prices will range from as little as $25 to as much as $1,100. The Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) reports that half of all tickets–some 1.6 million in total–will be priced at $100 or less, and 100,000 tickets will be set at the minimum cost of $25.
Visitors who want the best “A” seats at the Opening Ceremonies at BC Place Stadium will pay the top price of $1,100 per ticket; seat categories “B, C, D” for the same event will cost $750, $500, and $175 respectively. The next hottest tickets are for the men’s ice hockey gold-medal rounds, with seats going for $750, $500, and $350.
Those are premium prices, no doubt, but comparable to other major sporting events. Tickets to the 2007 Stanley Cup finals ranged from $110 to $903, priced in U.S. dollars. VANOC notes that its best seats for opening and closing ceremonies will be less expensive than tickets for those same events at the Torino 2006 or Salt Lake 2002 Winter Games. And according to its Olympic bid commitment, VANOC will purchase 50,000 tickets to donate to charitable organizations, to increase access to the Games across the socio-economic spectrum.
Not sure you can commit to a date and time two years in advance? Not to worry. VANOC plans to create an online buy-and-sell ticket exchange program that will allow ticket holders who can’t make an event to exchange their tickets with other spectators who can attend.
Some 250,000 tickets for the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Games, March 12 to 21, 2010, will go on sale in 2009. For more information, visit vancouver2010.com