Canadians have already shelled out $345 million in the first buying period for tickets to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, reports Toronto's Globe and Mail. The tickets, which have been on sale for only five weeks, have already generated 4.5 times more money than the first nine-week buying period for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, UT.
The Globe and Mail reports that demand for tickets was so strong that orders outstripped the number of seats available at 120 of the 170 events comprising the 17-day Winter Games. Not surprisingly, the men's hockey final generated the most attention from ticket buyers, despite astronomical ticket prices ranging from $350 to $775.
Joe Furlong, president of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics, called the amount of interest “stunning,” reports the Globe and Mail. “It's beyond anything ever seen in an Olympics before,” he told a Vancouver Board of Trade luncheon, “We had no idea when we started how people would react.”
