Demand greatly exceeds supply. The registration phase for the second tranche of ticket sales to attend the events of the Olympic Games in the summer of 2024 (from July 26 to August 11), was completed on Thursday, April 20. According to the Organizing Committee of the Games, 4 million people have registered for a draw, the results of which will be known in early May.
This is much more than the million and a half places that the organizers of Paris 2024 intend to sell thanks to this sequence during which ticket purchases will be made individually. “There won’t be enough for everyone”, had warned, in mid-March, Tony Estanguet, the president of the Organizing Committee of the Games, who said he expected “that this second phase will continue to generate disappointments and frustrations. It’s inevitable “.
He was referring to the first session, which resulted in the sale of 3.25 million tickets between mid-February and mid-March, but which had drawn criticism for the complexity of the process (purchasing by packs ) and, above all, controversy over prices, considered too high by many candidates for the acquisition of tickets.
The figure of 4 million registered “is very impressive, commented on Friday, the management of Paris 2024, the challenge was to further increase an already very solid base. A million more is great. »
Those who will be selected for the draw for this second sales “window” will be informed from May 9, with purchases to begin two days later: they will then have to finalize their choices within forty-eight hours.
150,000 tickets at 24 euros
With such demand for this new phase of marketing, Paris 2024 will have no trouble highlighting the persistence of a “commercial success”, as it did at the end of the first sales window.
Faced with accusations of breaching the promise of “accessible” and “popular” Games, the organizers had again insisted, at the time of the launch of the second sequence of sales, on the fact that they were offering, on this occasion, 150,000 tickets at 24 euros, the lowest price. In the first phase, 400,000 seats at this same price were sold.
But, to hope to access it, it will be necessary to be among the first drawn. There will still be 150,000 to be entered in a third and final phase (which will cover 3.25 million tickets in total, all prices combined).
At this price, however, it will be impossible to claim to attend the final phases of the competitions, now accessible thanks to this second ticketing phase: the finals of the 100 m in athletics, basketball or the 100 m freestyle, for example, are offered between 125 and 980 euros. As for the opening ceremony along the Seine, it is necessary to plan between 90 and 2,700 euros (on the lower quays) and, for the closing ceremony at the Stade de France, between 45 euros and 1,600 euros.
Eight million tickets (all prices combined) must be sold to the general public for the Olympic Games alone. From October, there will also be more than 3 million places offered for the Paralympic Games (from August 28 to September 8, 2024).
“Popular” box offices more focused on the Paralympics
Faced with the scale – and above all the impact – of the frustrations and criticisms aroused by the first phase of marketing, the State and the territories hosting sites and events have communicated a great deal, in recent weeks, on the operations to which they will proceed in order to show that the promise of “accessible” and “popular” Games will be delivered.
In this case, the government and local authorities will buy tickets and distribute them free of charge to selected audiences, “who do not have the means” to attend the events (young people, vulnerable audiences, volunteers from the sports movement, people in disability…). The government thus gave, at the beginning of April, the kick-off to “Tous aux Jeux”: this will relate to 80,000 to 100,000 places purchased and distributed for the Olympic events alone.
The City of Paris, the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, the Ile-de-France region (35,000 for the Games), or the public territorial establishment Plaine Commune (Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen, L’Ile -Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers) will do the same with distributions of between 16,000 and 35,000 tickets for the Olympics alone.
A large part of these public “popular ticketing” programs will, however, concern the Paralympic Games: more than 300,000 places in the case of the State for example, and between 15,000 and 30,000 for Paris, Seine-Saint -Denis, the Ile-de-France region or Plaine Commune.
In total, the free distribution programs set up by the government and communities will cover 1 million tickets, Olympic Games and Paralympic Games combined, to be compared to the 13.5 million put up for sale by Paris 2024.
Ticketing is one of the three pillars of the Paris 2024 budget: it represents a third of the 4.38 billion euros in forecast revenue, i.e. as much as the contribution paid by the International Olympic Committee and sponsorship agreements.