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Vanoc to begin billing for Olympic tickets

By Bruce Constantineau
December 1, 2008 12:35 PM

Anxious Canadians hoping to attend live Olympic events will find out if they got tickets as early as today.

The Vancouver Olympic organizing committee will begin charging the Visa credit card accounts of successful ticket applicants today. All applicants will receive an e-mail by Dec. 10 at the latest, letting them know whether or not they succeeded in this first round of ticket allocation.

About 120 of 170 Olympic events were oversubscribed so a lottery process to determine the successful applicants began last Friday.

Lottery events include the opening and closing ceremonies, figure skating, speed skating and men's hockey.

Ticket prices range from $25 for biathlon and cross-country skiing to $1,118 for the opening ceremonies.

A "priority access period" — when remaining tickets go on sale to unsuccessful ticket applicants — will run from Dec. 12 to Dec. 22 before going on sale to the general public early next year.

Vanoc received more than $345 million in ticket requests during the five-week period ending Nov. 7 and expects to generate $232 million in total ticket revenues.
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