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Ticket sales higher than expected
By Brady Snyder
Deseret News staff writer
Things are going good — real good.
On the second day of competition at the 2002 Paralympics, Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Mitt Romney announced that ticket sales have outpaced expectations.
"We are very pleased with our sales," Romney said. "Clearly there are some events where we wish we had more seating."
Friday SLOC sold 10,000 Paralympic tickets bringing their aggregate to 193,000 tickets sold, or 78 percent of the total available. Of the 33 ticketed events, 11 have or are sold out. Two of Saturday's sled hockey games, Norway versus Sweden and Canada versus the United States, were sellouts, Romney said.
The robust sales come after Salt Lake produced the largest crowd ever to witness a Paralympic opening ceremonies Thursday.
Paralympic tickets are in such high demand that International Paralympic Committee President Phil Craven predicted that scalpers would soon be outside venues selling ducats at boosted prices.
"We are seeing great interest and enthusiasm on the part of the community," Craven said.
While Craven had no information on how Salt Lake's ticket sales compared to previous Paralympics, he said SLOC's ticketing system was revolutionary and should be modeled in the future.
The system has allowed spectators to purchase tickets to individual events. In the past, Craven said, Paralympic tickets were sold by the venue so that a spectator with a venue ticket could get into any event at that venue.
That system, Craven said, led to long lines and unhappy spectators.
Under SLOC's plan, spectators have been happy, Craven said, and that has led to more sales.
Given the current economic downturn and the fact that many people spent large amounts of cash on pricey Olympic tickets, Romney said he didn't know what to expect for the Paralympics.
But given the ticket prices for the Paralympics — $5 for kids and $10 for adults — people have been willing to spend more money to catch the only glimpse they'll likely ever get of Paralympians in action.
"There's a sense of 'we don't want the world to go away,' " Romney said. "We welcomed the world and we want the world to stay."
Tickets and other information about the Paralympics are available through SLOC's Paralympic Web site www.paralympics2002.com or by calling 1-800-TICKETS. Tickets can only be purchased at SmithTix.
E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com
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March 10, 2002
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