Ajit Karn
Paris: Four out of five French citizens believe that tickets for the 2024 Paris Olympics are expensive, according to a survey released on Sunday, highlighting the increasing public discontent with the organisers over the issue.
According to a survey conducted by the Odoxa polling group on behalf of the RTL media group and the sports wagering company Winamax, 82 percent of respondents indicated that game tickets were “not affordable.”
A similar proportion of respondents (79%) found the ticketing process to be “complicated,” according to the survey.
Tony Estanguet, the president of the 2024 Paris organising committee, has been on the defensive for the past two weeks following the first significant release of tickets to the public via a lottery system.
Successful applicants were required to purchase tickets for three events simultaneously, with many discovering sports priced at a minimum of 80 euros; a family of four could incur a cost of nearly 1,000 euros.
“We are not more costly than London in 2012,” Estanguet stated on February 22 on RTL radio. “The football and rugby World Championships are identical. The costs are as follows.”
The official slogan for the Paris event is “Games Wide Open,” and when the ticketing policy was announced last March, former canoeing gold medalist Estanguet assured “a large number of tickets at affordable prices, for all sports.”
Organisers have pledged one million tickets at 24 euros ($25) and nearly half at less than 50 euros, but it appears that the public’s frustration is due to the difficulty of obtaining these discounted offers.
There have been numerous complaints on social media about the prices of up to 690 euros for an athletics ticket and the dearth of availability for sports such as fencing and climbing, which rapidly sold out.
In the first phase, approximately three million tickets were available, with an additional seven million to be sold in two subsequent phases.
Beginning in May, applicants will be able to purchase single tickets, including for the opening and closing ceremonies.
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At the conclusion of 2023, a third and final ticket sales phase will commence.
In an editorial published this week, the left-leaning newspaper Le Monde described the initial reactions to the registration system as “worrisome” in light of the organisers’ goals to make the games accessible and popular.
“Tony Estanguet may declare that ‘tens of thousands of people are thrilled,’ but public discontent is a concern when ticket sales are just beginning,” the newspaper added.
