VANCOUVER - A plan to crack down on people attempting to scalp tickets to the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver is being applauded by Canada's Olympic committee and Games sponsors.
Vancouver's Olympic organizers promised hyper-vigilance on the resale of tickets when pricing was announced last fall. But with this month's deadline for sponsors and Olympic committees to put in their requests for tickets, they're stepping up counter-scalping measures.
One national Olympic committee has already been targeted for promising gold medal hockey tickets to a ticket broker, despite not yet having any tickets in hand.
The broker in turn had sold the tickets to a Vancouver company.
The country isn't being named, but the head of marketing for Vancouver's Games said when their order comes in, they aren't going to get what they're after.
"We'll be asking them what they're doing with (the tickets) and if they can't prove to us they're using them for a legitimate purpose, they won't be getting them," said Dave Cobb.
Thirty per cent of the tickets for the 2010 Games are reserved for what organizers call "the Olympic family," which means sponsors and other national Olympic committees.
They purchase them just like members of the general public, but must place their order for how many they'd like and for what events by the end of May.
The remaining 70 per cent of tickets go on sale to the public, via a lottery system, beginning in October.
Transparency in ticket sales is one of the biggest issues facing organizers Cobb said.
Even his mother and daughter are going to have to join the lottery like everybody else.
"It's one of the biggest public relations risks that an organizing committee has, how you manage the distribution of tickets," Cobb said.
"We know that people have been looking forward to the Games for so many years already. If you end up with an unfair system because of who you know, there's no way we can do that."
Once the Olympic family" members submit their orders, Vancouver officials decide how many tickets to allocate and to whom, based on factors like athletics and geography.
Organizers also take into account historic requests for tickets, said Richard Pound, a member of the International Olympic Committee and the Vancouver Organizing Committee.
Pound said national committees have used their allotments in the past to make some quick cash from brokers, who ask the committees to order more tickets than normal and then pay the committees a premium to buy the unused tickets.
"All of a sudden you find Belarus or Belize wanting a whole bunch of Olympic tickets from Winter Games way out of all proportion to what their normal uptake would be and that's usually an indication that tickets have been bought for purposes of resale," he said.
In addition to paying attention to unusual requests for blocks of tickets, Vancouver's organizers will send out secret shoppers to buy tickets from resellers.
The bar codes on the tickets can then be matched to the source.
Cobb said if any tickets are found in the hands of brokers, Vancouver's organizers will invalidate the entire lot allocated to the committee or sponsor who provided them and then put the block back on sale to the general public.
"It's unacceptable to us to have companies that sign agreements saying they will not sell tickets to ticket brokers to go ahead and do that," he said.
"If they do that, they will have violated the terms of their agreement with us and in our opinion they no longer deserve the right to have priority access to tickets."
Orders for the 2010 Games are already rolling in, said Caley Denton, vice president, ticketing and consumer marketing at VANOC.
"We anticipated higher than normal and we're seeing what we anticipated," he said.
Those tickets are meant for athletes' families and people directly connected to the Games, said Caroline Assalian, executive director of Olympic preparation and Games for the COC.
She said she's pleased the Vancouver organizers are standing up to the brokers.
"I am thrilled that people are now making some tough decisions and taking a stand, taking action to ensuring that the purity of the sport, the purity of the Games returns to the athletes and the competition," she said.
Assalian said for the upcoming Beijing Games, the competition for tickets has been fierce. National Olympic committees have requested a quarter of million more tickets than Beijing organizers have been able to provide.
She said a dearth of tickets can often place stress on the athlete, who wants their family around them for the Games.
Vancouver's Olympics will increase that stress, she said.
"It's a home Games. There is going to be more than mom and dad," she said.
"There's going to be mom and dad and husband and wife or kids or things like that."
For sponsors, the tickets are often used to entertain clients, motivate employees or draw customers.
Steven Keith, director of Olympic and community partnerships with PetroCanada, said it was news to him that people were taking tickets and turning them over to scalpers.
He said PetroCanada's focus is on using their tickets to build their brand.
"Olympic hospitality is something that is an opportunity to entertain current and potential customers in what's really the most prestigious, exciting event in the world," Keith said.
"In doing that, you raise credibility with your partners and your clients."
Cobb said Vancouver's organizers are figuring out a way to run a legitimate re-sale option for tickets, recognizing that people sometimes can't follow through on using tickets they've purchased.
They're also looking at ways to hold back tickets to some gold-medal events in case major sporting upsets change who might be interested in attending.
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