The “good” tickets for the Salt Lake City 2002 Games may be all gone by midnight Tuesday. That’s the cut-off date for the initial ticket-request and Salt Lake’s CEO Mitt Romney says 15 sports already have one or more sold-out sessions. The committee has received $62 million in ticket requests so far.
It seems that Salt Lake City residents have requested far more tickets than any other group of Americans – $9.1 million. Residents of the San Francisco Bay area came in second at $3.8 million.
Romney says “this has been a much hotter ticket than we ever imagined. We are way ahead of our expectations and way ahead of prior Olympic Games in terms of timing”.
Any order received by midnight Tuesday has an equal chance of being filled because SLOC’s random-selection process does not prioritize early orders, but after Tuesday, it will be much harder to get tickets for many events.
The sold-out sessions are in bobsled, downhill, aerials, figure skating, giant slalom, ice hockey, moguls, opening ceremonies, snowboarding, super-G, ski jumping, slalom, skeleton and speedskating.
Figure skating, which leads the way in the number of tickets requested, may be the hardest to get, with men’s and women’s hockey second, followed by ski jumping, cross-country skiing, freestyle aerials, snowboarding, bobsledding and downhill skiing.
But SLOC expects many tickets will remain available to Americans for events such as biathlon, cross country skiing, combined slalom, curling, Nordic combined and the closing ceremony. Other tickets may be bought through international sales or available with premium packages.
SLOC may also release unused tickets that are unused by sponsors and other groups, and plans to set up a special area for private ticket sales during the Games.
