Tickets .. Get your tickets
11 October 1997Australians will be offered the chance next year to buy guaranteed seats for the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies and the other stadium events, under plans favoured by Sydney's Olympic Organising Committee (SOCOG).
Between 15,000 and 18,000 reserved stadium seats are likely to go on sale in the middle of the year, at least 12 months before SOCOG begins its official national program of selling seats for all Olympic sporting events.
The cost of a guaranteed seat for all 10 days of stadium events, including the opening and closing ceremonies, is yet to be finalised, with some estimates of $3,800 to $4,800 and others of more than $5,500.
Under the plans, a group of people could buy a ticket and share it among themselves - one using it for a morning session for example and a friend using it for an afternoon session.
The early sale of tickets is without precedent at the Olympic Games and is being considered by SOCOG to help the underwriters of last year's failed float of Stadium Australia recover some of their money.
The four underwriters of the float were forced to buy nearly $240 million worth of unsold gold memberships after the float saw only a third of the $10,000 memberships sold.
Each of the gold memberships contains a guaranteed stadium seat during the Games (and a 30-year membership of the stadium). SOCOG has now agreed that those Olympic seats can be sold.
SOCOG is anxious to keep the prices for the guaranteed seats roughly in line with the prices it will be charging for stadium events when it begins general ticket sales in 1999.
But underwriters are anxious to minimise their losses by getting as much for the tickets as they can. It is believed they want at least $5,500 per ticket and have discussed amounts as high as $6,500.
While SOCOG may allow some premium to be charged for a guaranteed seat, it is unlikely to allow prices this high. With stadium events taking place on only 10 days of the Games, and with some days having only one session, such prices would value a single session at well over $300.
Before the guaranteed stadium seats go on sale here, underwriters will offer them for sale to National Olympic Committee members overseas and to international and national Olympic sponsors. However, early indications are that it will be difficult to sell more than 7,000 of the 24,000 seats available and that sales to the public are needed to recover the underwriters' money.
