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British Columbia: Plan to sell more 2010 tickets to public gets chilly reception from IOC

by Barry ORegan | August 24, 2008 at 05:28 am

425 views | 16 Recommendations | 8 comments

Opinion

Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor

I agree, cause them $500.00 - $2,000.00 tickets (opening and Closing Games and good sports venues) are needed by us who can't afford them, though our tax dollars paid for the games.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=93fefc35-2f41-412c-9d26-a0ef47adbb12

(Photo Inset) Despite many empty seats at competitions, Chinese and foreign visitors have eagerly sought seats to the big contests and have often turned to "yellow bulls" or scalpers. REUTERS/David Gray

Plan to sell more 2010 tickets to public gets chilly reception from IOC

Jeff Lee Vancouver Sun

Sunday, August 24, 2008

The International Olympic Committee has poured cold water on a plan by organizers of the Vancouver Games to cut back on reserved media seating in 2010 in order to sell more tickets to the public.

Kevan Gosper, head of the IOC's press commission, said Saturday he was surprised to hear about the plan, which Vanoc executive vice-president David Cobb revealed to the Vancouver Sun last week.

"I would have thought that was something that Vanoc should have discussed with us first before talking about it in public," Gosper said.

"I can tell you that this idea is something I am not particularly in favour of, but we haven't had any discussions about it yet."

Cobb restated his intentions at a closing press conference on Friday, when Vanoc officials talked about lessons they learned while in Beijing.

He said Vanoc was looking at scaling back the size of press tribunes, as well as reserved seating for IOC officials, in order to sell more tickets to the public and create more of a fan atmosphere.

He was critical of the fact that some of the best seats in the house are held for media, but often go unused.

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Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 06:19 on August 24th, 2008

I'm not convinced that the Olympics would sell out- Beijing's ticket-sales "success" was outed as block reservations by political bosses, and, including transportation and accomodation costs, even if tickets were $100, would the Curling opening matches really sell out? I'm not dissing Curling, but you know what I'm saying. (In Athens 2004, even women's Beach Volleyball didn't sell out!)

Moruthane KP

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 06:23 on August 24th, 2008

Barry Artiste, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Barry ORegan

at 07:13 on August 24th, 2008

Thanks Jordan and Moruthane for your comments and flag, as you say Jordan, I think we may be taken for a let down here, some sports just aren't as popular as others, and if some sell block tickets to get others to less popular events, well some may just watch it all on TV. And Hey, who wants to travel the highway of death to Whistler? Not Me!

Barry ORegan

at 07:50 on August 24th, 2008

Thanks Mettacara, protects like the ones in China, will assure British Columbians a front row seat once our 2010 olympics arrive, as we will no doubt have our own protestors to deal with from everything to the homeless, price of housing, gas, drugs, health care to parking, not as earth shattering as Tibet, but a disruption none the less over here.