The organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games unveiled their ticketing strategy on Monday, notably offering half of the tickets for sale at less than 50 euros (around CA$70) during the year 2023, an essential financial windfall to complete their budget.
After unveiling in December, with a lot of visuals, an unprecedented opening ceremony outside the stadium entirely on the Seine – the invoice for which has not yet been posted – the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (OCOG) is bent over the ticket office.
Of course, the pandemic scenario is still lurking, after the camera in Tokyo and the very small number of spectators in Beijing. A year ago, the boss of the OCOG, Tony Estanguet, had also told French parliamentarians that the committee was working on several models for this reason.
More than 13.4 million tickets will be available for sale: 10 million for the Olympics and 3.4 million for the Paralympics. Everything will be sold in 2023, through a draw system that will generate purchase slots in February, May and then at the end of the year.
“Open to as many people as possible”
In terms of prices, one million Olympic tickets will be sold at 20 euros (just over CA$30), for all sports. And 50% of Olympic tickets will be sold for 50 euros or less. For the boss of the OCOG, the idea is to have “Games open to the greatest number, popular, unifying”, with “a large volume of tickets at affordable prices”.
The OCOG’s budget, which now stands at nearly 4 billion euros (nearly 5.5 billion Canadian dollars), is based on sponsorship revenue, ticket sales and a contribution from the International Olympic Committee (IOC ). On the side of the sponsors, the round table – 1.1 billion euros (about 1.5 billion Canadian dollars) – is not yet complete.
The interministerial delegate to the Olympic Games, Michel Cadot, recently gave the OCOG a thumbs up: “In terms of progress in terms of respecting the […] as on the budgetary level, the files are very correctly controlled, ”he explained to the French National Assembly.
After the 2020 review, which resulted in 300 million euros (more than 415 million Canadian dollars) in savings, expenses and revenues will once again be scrutinized. The next budget revision is indeed scheduled for the end of 2022. The executive has asked the organizers to seize its audit committee to review the budget by the summer. Especially since the OCOG could see its forecasts hit by the inflationary context or by possible economic consequences linked to the war in Ukraine.
A few false notes
At the same time, the organizers manage other sensitive issues such as the torch relay. More than ten departments have publicly refused the entrance ticket to 150,000 euros (more than 200,000 $CA) excluding taxes for the passage of the flame, judging it prohibitive. The OCOG insists on the fact that it does not earn any money from the operation and that it bears part of it. Not all departments have responded yet.
Some test sites are also talked about.
After the shooting site at La Courneuve, on track to stay there, it is now the site of the basketball qualifying events, one of the halls of the Porte de Versailles Exhibition Center, which is causing a lot of ink to flow — especially on Twitter. “How can we accept to see basketball, the most popular collective sport at the Olympics, being sent to the Parc des Expos? » rose up last week Evan Fournier, Olympic vice-champion with the French team in Tokyo.
“Of course, these are probably not the standards of an NBA room, but it is also what we like at the Olympic Games, to have a” horizontality “between all the sports”, replied the five-time Olympic champion of biathlon, now a member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, Martin Fourcade. For its part, the OCOG explains that meetings are underway with the International Basketball Federation to find “technical solutions”.
But all this did not appease the basketball player, who tried to train handball, who will play in Lille, in his fight on Twitter : “Seriously, I am a handball player: I am told that I am going to experience the Olympic Games from Paris to Lille. I’M GOING AHEAD. It’s a shame. Don’t let yourself go. How many gold medals did you bring back to France? How disrespectful. »