Updated: Fan resale site for 2010 Winter Games tickets is open

The long-awaited ticket-resale site managed by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Games is up and running.

Fans looking to buy 2010 Games tickets from other fans can do so at VANOC's web site, www.vancouver2010.com. But there are a couple significant catches, especially for Americans.

Americans can purchase tickets, but not sell on the "fan-to-fan" site, VANOC has confirmed. However, if U.S. residents purchase a "fan-to-fan" ticket or tickets on the site and then wish to resell them, they can do so on the site, a VANOC spokesman said.

The service comes with a price: VANOC will take its own 20-percent cut -- 10 percent charged to the seller, 10 percent to the buyer -- from tickets it has already sold once.

Further, VANOC looks to be limiting use of the site only to ticket holders who had purchased their tickets through wwww.vancouver2010.com in the first place: The only way to sell is for customers with existing ticket accounts to log into said account and click a "sell my tickets" link. That would appear to preclude use of the site from ticket holders who purchased their tickets from "unauthorized" sellers -- basically anyone other than VANOC.

The service, in other words, appears to fall well short of the open-bazaar type affair many fans expected would be put in place to help ensure that all tickets for the 2010 Games actually get used.

Other important details:

• There's no limit on the number of seats ticket holders can post for resale, nor is there a ceiling on asking price. Sellers can adjust their asking price or remove posted tickets at any time.


• If tickets do not sell by 24 hours before an event's start time, VANOC will cancel the posting and the tickets will remain in the seller's account.


• The site also will allow dealing in tickets for the Paralympic Games. Because it is a major Olympic sponsor, Visa is the only accepted method of payment.


• Prices are expected to be high initially, as sellers test the market. For instance, tickets for the pairs short program in figure skating, with a face price of $420, were listed at $900 on the Web site this morning, mimicking the price on scalper Web sites. Men's bronze-medal hockey game tickets with a face value of $225 were listed for up to $800 on the site. If you're serious about buying tickets, it might behoove you to cool your heels for a bit.

The site also includes a mechanism to donate tickets to community groups, with no fee for that service. The donation service is primarily a mechanism for sponsors and others with blocks of tickets that might go unused to donate them to charity. Previous Olympics have suffered from chronic bouts of "empty-seat phenomenon" when sponsor tickets went unused.

The site, the first of its kind for an Olympics, is aimed to ensure full venues, and help guarantee that tickets come from authorized distributors. It's also being billed as a "safe" alternative to scalper sites.

"We know that well over 90 per cent of Canadian ticket account holders plan to use all their tickets for the Games but a secondary market will exist where people will want to buy, sell and donate tickets," Caley Denton, VANOC's vice president, ticketing and consumer marketing, said in a news release.

"The fan-to-fan marketplace will be the safest and most secure way for Games' fans in Canada and worldwide to purchase Vancouver 2010 tickets from fellow fans in Canada as we guarantee the tickets purchased through our fan-to-fan marketplace have valid bar codes and are legitimate."

VANOC has threatened to invalidate tickets that have been laundered from sponsors or other original buyers through unauthorized ticket resellers, although most ticket-industry experts say that's likely a hollow threat.

VANOC also said that it has met its goal in ensuring that 70 percent of the Games' 1.6 million total tickets will be sold to the public (as opposed to sponsors and other members of the "Olympic Family.") The public share might actually approach 75 percent, VANOC said, calling that "a much higher number than previous Winter Games." It also said it had exceeded its goal in ensuring that at least 30 percent of tickets at premium events, such as hockey medal rounds and figure skating, would be reserved for the public.

You'll have to take their word for all that: VANOC has kept most details of its ticketing distribution secret, and continues to do so. It has issued no hard numbers or event-by-event breakdowns to back up its percentage claims. The organization has refused to even acknowledge how many overall seats, after space is carved up for media and other uses, will be available to sponsors and the public in each Olympic arena, many of which are publicly financed. No government or independent agency has oversight over VANOC's business affairs.

The organizing committee today also announced plans to auction leftover tickets to some of those prime events to the highest bidder, and a new opportunity to rent luxury suites for individual Olympic events. See www.vancouver2010.com/tickets to fill out a request form. Prices start at $5,000, food and beverages not included.

VANOC also noted that tickets remain for many events in Whistler, but these tickets do not allow travel on the Olympic Bus Network from hubs in metro Vancouver. These tickets are available only to Whistler-area residents and those with proof of accommodations during the Games. They're sold only at the Whistler Main Ticket Centre.

(Correction note: An earlier verson of this post said VANOC had not mentioned the percentage of seats in its venues that will be reserved for the public at premium Olympic events. The post above has been corrected. -- Ron Judd)