Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Tickets.com sales surge for the 2010 Winter Olympics

The Costa Mesa-based company is the official supplier for the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

OC Metro
By Jena Vuylsteke
Published: November 24, 2008

Although the 2010 Winter Games are over a year a way, tickets.com has already seen their sales skyrocket. Expected to release 1.6 million tickets over the course of the next year, the company began phase one of the process on Oct. 3, opening up tickets for Canadian residents that ranged anywhere from $25 for a single event, to $1,100 to attend the opening or closing ceremonies.

“In terms of volume, Vancouver presented a unique challenge; compared to the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympic Games, in phase one alone Vancouver has already sold two times the tickets requested,” according to tickets.com CEO Larry Witherspoon.

Activating a new ProVenue Ticket Management System to ensure security, the Vancouver Organizing Committee agreed that the first phase of sales was a success. "The Web site developed by tickets.com was easy to use and held up under incredible volume including $135 million in requests on the final day,” says Caley Denton, the committee's vice president.

The 2010 Winter Games marks tickets.com’s fourth time as an Olympic retailer, beginning with the Atlanta Summer Games in 1996.

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