By Julien Pretot
PARIS (Reuters) – Organisers of the Paris 2024 Olympics are hoping to sell a record 10 million tickets for the sporting extravaganza with an additional 3.4 million available for the Paralympic Games, the boss of the organising committee said.
London 2012 put just under nine million tickets up for sale and sold some 8.2 million, while Atlanta 1996 sold around 8.3 million of 11 million available.
“We will have 13.4 million tickets up for sale. Ten million for the Olympics and 3.4 for the Paralympics. This is a unique amount of tickets,” Paris 2024 chief Tony Estanguet said.
“It’s ambitious. We believe that the Paris 2024 Games will be unique.
“The ticketing programme represents one-third of our revenue. So it’s really important for us to maximise this programme.”
Estanguet said the cheapest tickets for the Olympics would cost 24 euros ($26.53) and 15 euros for the Paralympics.
“We wanted to have a ticketing programme starting with tickets at 24 euros for all sports. It will represent over one million tickets at this price,” he said.
“This is a very strong promise. To give access to all Olympic sports. Half of the tickets will be under 50 euros.”
The registration phase “on a single and unique platform provided by CTS Eventim, France Billet and Orange Business Services” would start by the end of the year, Estanguet said.
He said there would be no other official platform or provider for tickets and that the platform would provide fans with a secure option to resell their tickets.
Estanguet added that a draw would then be made because they anticipated that there would be more people wanting to buy tickets than those available.
“The early draw means that people won’t have to go through the whole process of choosing, trying to buy tickets first and end up empty handed,” Estanguet said.
“By February, 2023, we will launch the (actual) sale of the tickets.”
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there have been questions about whether registration will be restricted for Russian or Belarusian citizens.
“We will discuss it in the coming months but we still have time to decide,” said Estanguet.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis and Clare Fallon)
