This may come as a great surprise to a lot of people, but buying Olympic event tickets is quite a bit more involved than buying tickets for other sporting or entertainment events. For Olympic events, you can’t just go onto a website to order tickets or take a drive to a box office or local ticket agent to get tickets, there is an order that must be followed to obtain seats to these special events.
Winter Olympic tickets are a hot commodity, and the fact that they only come around once every four years – spread out all over the world, makes them very hard to come by. The Olympic committee wants to ensure that the tickets are distributed in as fair a fashion as possible, so there is a system of purchase that must be followed in order to get the tickets.
All About Timing
If you are just preparing to get your Olympic event tickets now, then you are a bit behind the curve. Few people know just how far in advance tickets to Olympic events go on sale. The initial request period began in October of 2008, nearly a year and a half before the start of the games. Canadian residents as well as those outside of Canada had the ability to request tickets between the beginning of October and the middle of November of last year – then those that filled out the appropriate form had the ability to purchase the tickets during the priority access period that occurred between December tenth and December twenty-second of last year.
In the event that more requests were made for an event than there were tickets available, a lottery will be conducted to ensure the fair distribution of the requested tickets.
If you missed phase one of the ticket sales, you are most likely not out of luck – there is a phase two of sales occurring in the Spring of 2009. Tickets for the events that didn’t sell out will become available during phase two – you run the risk of not being able to get tickets to the exact event that you wanted on the exact day that you had planned, but there is a very good chance that you’ll be able to get tickets for something that you will enjoy during the second phase of ticket sales. If you are serious about tickets to a particular event, you shouldn’t wait beyond phase two to try and get them -residents outside of Canada have to visit the website of their Olympic committee. In order to get information about how to get in on phase two – a visit www.vancouver2010.com can direct you to the appropriate website to purchase tickets for the country in which you reside.
Book a Trip through a Travel Agent
If you’re determined to go to the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, even though you missed phase one of ticket sales and you somehow don’t get tickets in phase two of sales this Spring, you can always book a trip to Vancouver during the Olympic Games. A travel agent won’t be able to get you tickets to specific events, but ticket booths are open beginning the first day of the games and people can purchase tickets at the door of events that still have them available.
If you don’t have a specific event in mind that you have your heart set on seeing, and you just want to be a part of the Olympic experience you can often save some money by purchasing available tickets to preliminary events.
Tickets to the Olympic Games are by no means easy to get, in fact they are probably much harder to come by than any other event that you may ever try to attend, but for many a trip to the Games is a once in a lifetime experience that’s worth every bit of extra effort to try and get tickets for.
