Vanoc flooded with 2010 Olympic ticket requests
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, October 03, 2008
VANCOUVER - People looking to buy tickets to the 2010 Olympics flooded the computer servers of the Vancouver Organizing Committee early Friday.
Early reports by Vanoc indicated that they underestimated the amount of traffic they anticipated when the ticket purchase program went live at midnight, Pacific time.
"Off the top, when we first activated the site, there was about 30 times the usual traffic we see at vancouver2010.com, and that interest has come from across the country - coast to coast," said spokeswoman Renee Smith-Valade. "We were not counting on seeing a huge rush of applications of the top, and consistent with that, what we are seeing so far is a huge interest in coming into the site and "looking around", shopping around, as people are curious to see what is available for tickets and are looking to get a sense of how it all works."
Vanoc is putting up about 1.6 million tickets for sale, but they are not on a first-come, first-served basis.
In an effort to prevent scalpers and ticket hogs from claiming the best seats, Vanoc instituted a reservation system that will allow people to apply for tickets over a five-week period.
Between now and Nov. 7 ticket-hunters can browse Vanoc's web site and choose either single tickets or build "Olympic Experience Packages."
Tickets for high-demand events will go to a lottery system afterwards.
Vanoc predicts that such events as figure skating, gold-medal men's and women's hockey, Canadian curling and even some downhill events may be oversubscribed and require a lottery.
Smith-Valade said Vanoc has worked hard in recent weeks to get the message out to ticket buyers that they have time to put together their dream packages.
"We're encouraged by that as it seems to indicate that our message that its important to take your time, and that it's not a race, has been clear."
Vanoc has not said how many package requests it has received today, or whether some sports may already be sold out.
You'll need lottery luck for top 2010 Games tickets
Vanoc expects lottery to decide who gets 2010 Games tickets for many top-level events
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, October 31, 2008
VANCOUVER - With one week to go before the end of the first phase of ticket sales, Vancouver Olympic organizers say they now expect strong public demand will force tickets to many top-level events to be decided on the basis of a lottery.
But they're not specifying which sports and events have already had more orders than available tickets, saying they don't want to dissuade people from putting in orders for their dream tickets.
"I knew you would ask that, and you knew I wouldn't answer that, didn't you?" joked Dave Cobb, Vanoc's executive vice-president of revenue, marketing and communications when asked to identify which sports have been sold out. "We don't want to interfere with peoples' ordering process. We don't want them to necessarily affected by what other people are doing."
However, Cobb said Vanoc has always believed that the lottery process would be necessary for men's hockey, from the quarter-finals on up, and all of figure skating, long-track speed skating and all medal events for all sports.
Now, he said, orders placed since Vanoc began taking requests on Oct. 3 show that many more sports will likely go to lottery.
"I can tell you that we've significantly exceeded the number of orders I was expecting at this stage," he said. "So we will have more events going to lottery than I expected."
Cobb says that if people want to increase their chances of getting tickets to high-demand events, they should look at applying for "Olympic Experience Packages" which combine some events.
Those packages are less likely to go to lottery.
But he's also warning people to be careful not to over-order or take a shotgun approach to ordering in the hope of getting something.
"People who order on VISA need to be aware that they could possibly get everything they want in the lottery and need to be prepared that all these tickets will show up on their credit card bill," he said.
Unlike concerts and other public events, tickets to the 2010 Winter Games aren't being allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Vanoc opened the first phase for access to tickets on Oct. 3, telling customers to place their preferred orders before Nov. 7.
After that, Vanoc will fill all orders, as placed, for events that don't require a lottery.
On Dec. 8 Vanoc will reopen the ordering process for those who participated in the first phase, allowing them to buy other tickets in real time, but on a restricted basis.
Cobb said the second phase, which will come in time for Christmas, will allow customers to choose from events in lesser demand, up to a maximum of 50 tickets.
While Vanoc is keeping secret those events going to lottery, it released some figures showing the level of demand:
- Requests have come in from over 1,000 cities in every province and territory in the country;
- 93 per cent of all requests are for tickets to more than one sport (probably hockey);
- The average number of tickets per order is 15;
- The most orders have come from B.C., Ontario and Alberta, in that order.
"From the day we launched ticket sales, Canadians' response to attending the 2010 Olympic Winter Games has been outstanding across the full spectrum of sport events," Caley Denton, Vanoc's vice president of ticketing and consumer marketing said in a press release issued early Friday.
"With just one week to go in Phase One ticket orders, the most important thing to remember is that a request placed on or before November 7 is your best chance to receive the tickets you want and is the only way to qualify to order tickets in the Priority Access Period before the holidays." Cobb said Vanoc is seeing demand in all sports, including those not historically popular in Canada, such as Nordic combined, a combination of ski-jumping and cross-country that is popular in Europe but which has no following here.
Vanoc is also highlighting availability of tickets to preliminary events, since many of the medal rounds now appear to be going to lottery.
jefflee@vancouversun.com
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They should have done something revolutionary and put in a sheet of Olympic sized ice at BC Place and played the Mens / Womens Final there.
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