When a new allotment of 70,000 tickets were up for sale Wednesday by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, its Internet site and 50 telephone lines of broker Tickets.com were filled to capacity, and stayed that way for nearly three hours, processing orders submitted by some of the 52,000 people who originally established ticket accounts with the organizing committee as well as members of “Team 2002” which includes both paid staff and volunteers.
Fraser Bullock, SLOC’s chief operating officer said, “after that, the flow evened out and, although we were still at capacity, we were not generating as many ‘time-outs’ and busy signals”. He added, “we’re sorry people may have had to wait longer than they would have liked, but the response far exceeded what we expected…the bottom line is that it was fantastic”.
Although he was not prepared late Wednesday afternoon to release any figures on ticket sales, Bullock said the volume of orders “shows that people, despite the events that happened (Sept. 11), are still interested in participating in the Olympics”.
SLOC President Mitt Romney said, “the people of Utah and America continue to stand up for the Games. Every time we’ve turned to the people of Utah we’ve received all that we hoped for and more”.
Bullock said people quickly bought up all of the new tickets made available Wednesday to six events, including the men’s gold medal hockey game, freestyle aerials and moguls.
But SLOC held back some tickets from the new batch for Monday’s launching of ticket sales for the general public.
