Tickets for the Rio Paralympics are on offer for as little as R10 (£2.30/2.70/$3.10) as organisers try to shift the remaining seats for the Games, which begin on Wednesday.
According to a report by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, the lowest price for a ticket to an event at the Paralympics is a quarter of what was the cost of the cheapest ticket for the recently-concluded Olympic Games.
Last month, organisers sparked panic when they announced that only 12 per cent of tickets for the Paralympics had been sold. Special funding measures were approved for the Games while it was announced that one of its biggest competition venue hubs, Deodoro Park, was to be closed to cut costs.
However, the International Paralympic Committee painted a brighter picture today (Monday) but outlining a surge in recent ticket sales and a hope that the final one million tickets available for the event could sell out, with a total of 1.5 million having already been snapped up.
“Several finals are now fully sold out,” the IPC said. “The Paralympic athletes can be prepared to display their amazing will and skills in fully booked venues. While there are still around one million tickets available, the rhythm of sales suggests that all the 2.5 million tickets will be sold.”
Rio 2016 communications chief Mario Andrada insisted that there had been an important “change in the pattern of behaviour” of ticket-buyers.
“Firstly we saw a lot of energy coming from the Olympic Games and from people who just wanted to have access to the Paralympic Park at Barra,” Andrada said. “Now we see people look for specific athletes and scheduled duels.”
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