Ticketing of large scale events: the case of Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Available to Purchase

This paper investigates the challenge of ticketing for the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG). During the various phases of ticket marketing and ticket offers, mistakes were committed, which caused damage to the ticketing campaign and the image of the Organizing Committee as well. The public disappointment produced by those mistakes was expressed in many different ways. One month prior to the Opening Ceremony, more than two million tickets remained unsold. However, people’s desire to take part in the “greatest show on earth”, led to a boom in tickets sales in the lead up to the Opening Ceremony. Finally, SOCOG managed to sell 87.90 per cent of the tickets available to the public, the largest percentage of tickets ever sold in an Olympiad.