Online Olympic Ticket Flap Leaves Frustrated Fans Out In The Cold
Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 11:42PM 
November 9, 2009: Organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics hope that downhill skiing, luge, hockey and other events go much smoother than ticket sales did on Nov. 7. Visitors seeking to purchase upward of 100,000 tickets to the Olympic and Paralympic Games were unable to access the site due to technical difficulties, forcing the Vancouver Organizing Committee to postpone the event for a week.
The start of Phase 3 ticket sales is now scheduled to begin Saturday, Nov. 14 at 10 AM (Pacific Time) at www.Vancouver2010.com. The 2010 Olympic Winter Games will be Feb. 12-28, 2010.
Tickets.com, the official ticket service provider for Vancouver 2010, said it experienced difficulties with the configuration between the virtual waiting room and the ticketing transaction site. Ironically, Tickets.com's slogan is, "A simpler, smarter way to buy and sell tickets."
“On behalf of Tickets.com, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience visitors to the Vancouver 2010 ticketing site experienced this morning,” Larry Witherspoon, CEO for Tickets.com, said in a statement. “Our team is working hard to resolve the issue and appreciate the patience of Canadian Olympic and Paralympic fans.”
VANOC did confirm that "a few hundred tickets were sold to customers primarily through the call center." However, the equivalent number of tickets sold Nov. 7 for each event will be pulled from the Olympic Family contingency pool and added to the Nov. 14 public ticket sale, according to the organizers.
“We are disappointed that people wanting to purchase tickets today did not receive the chance to do so; this is the first time we have had such an issue,” Caley Denton, vp-ticketing for VANOC, said in a statement. “Even though it appears the problem is close to being resolved, we made the decision to postpone the sale of Phase 3 ticket sales for one week as our priority has always been to ensure fair access to Canadian residents and to allow sufficient time to plan accordingly.”
Separately, VANOC congratulated Canadian sibling city Toronto for being awarded host duties for the 2015 Pan America Games, a major sports event that marks the one-year countdown to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The Pan-Am Games are expected to attract some 5,000 athletes from 42 nations in North, South and Central America.
The awarding of the Pan-Am Games could also bolster Toronto's potential bid to host the 2020 or 2024 Summer Games.
“Given the enormously positive culture for sport that is growing in Canada and being supported by the 2010 Winter Games, this success is hugely encouraging for the country and for the City of Toronto," John Furlong, VANOC’s CEO, said in a statement. "We know in 2015 Toronto will win top marks as a superb host to thousands of athletes, officials and media from the Americas and the resulting sport and infrastructure legacies will last for generations." (Full story here.)
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