100,000 Olympic tickets on sale Saturday
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 | 11:28 AM PT
CBC News
Olympic mascots Miga and Quatchi got their tickets without having wait in the virtual waiting room on the Olympic website. (CBC)Another 100,000 Olympic tickets are going on sale on Saturday, including coveted seats at the gold medal hockey and curling matches and the Opening and Closing ceremonies, VANOC officials said Tuesday.
"This is the final major release of tickets to the Games and we expect demand will be high," said Caley Denton, vice president of ticketing for the Vancouver Organizing Committee.
The seats, which will be sold on a first-come basis on the 2010 Winter Games website, will cover all the events in the Vancouver area during the Games, which run from Feb. 12 to 28, along with tickets to the nightly Victory ceremonies at BC Place
Tickets for high demand Paralympic events in March, such as the Opening Ceremony, ice sledge hockey and alpine skiing, will also be on sale.
The ticketing website will place customers in a virtual waiting room after they log on. They will then be selected at random to buy a maximum of either four or eight tickets to a maximum of four events per transaction.
"To get a jump start, we suggest first-time buyers register a ticketing account with us beforehand and have a look at the schedules to determine what events work best for you. For return customers who want to purchase additional tickets, please log into your account ahead of time to make sure your information is up-to-date," Denton said.
Officials at VANOC have also said they soon plan to rolling out the official Olympic ticket re-selling site to allow people to legally resell seats they can't use themselves, possibly at a profit.
