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Industry News

Gold Coast 18 kicks off, tickets remain unsold

Around 140,000 tickets remain on sale for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, which started earlier today (Wednesday).

Organisers claim there are no concerns about the 20,000 unsold tickets left over at the basketball events, table tennis and squash preliminary events. 

According to the Brisbane Times, the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games chief executive Mark Peters said they are confident they will sell at least 95 per cent of the 140,000 remaining tickets.

The 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia will run from April 4-15.

“We’ve had an initial ticketing of 1.2 million tickets for sale … we have now been able to free up around 40,000 tickets that have progressively been put on the market in the last two weeks,” Peters said.

“People will start to get excited when they start to see the athletes.

“We are confident that we will be in a position that we are ahead of our venue projections.”

Last week, more than 200,000 tickets remained unsold, with organisers saying they were “delighted” with sales as they passed the one million mark.

Queensland Commonwealth Games Minister Kate Jones said they made a number of key decisions along the way to ensure the quality of all tickets, and they are comfortable with the current position.

“One was the schedule for the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast during the school holidays and the other was to keep prices affordable,” Jones said.

“You can get a ticket for as cheap as $10 to see some of the best athletes in the world compete here on the Gold Coast in our own backyard.”

Resale tickets for sold-out events such as swimming, beach volleyball and rugby sevens are also up for grabs on the GC2018’s fan marketplace as well as sites such as Gumtree.

The Gold Coast 2018 organisers acknowledge that there will be empty seats at some events, and have reportedly continued to push sponsors and international sports federations to take up their ticket allocations to avoid international TV coverage embarrassment.

Many potential ticket-buyers are believed to have been turned off by high accommodation prices and traffic fears, leaving organisers counting on a late sales rush.

Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive David Grevemberg encouraged Gold Coast locals to purchase the tickets that remain and take part in the world-class events.

“We encourage the citizens of the Gold Coast and across Queensland to be a part of this,” Grevemberg said.

“Go out and buy the remaining tickets. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Image: KGBO