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Many tickets for 2024 Paris Olympics still unsold a day before the Games
Paris — Just one day before the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, more than a million tickets to Olympic events were still unsold, including many for Friday’s first-of-its-kind outdoor ceremony on the Seine river itself. Olympic organizers had set lofty ticket sale ambitions, and they have met some of them.
Tony Estanguet, a three-time French Olympic canoeing champion and president of the Paris 2024 Olympic Organizing Committee, touted the record-breaking sale of 8.8 million tickets during a news conference on Sunday.
But there are many, many more left on offer, and still more being put up for sale every day even as many current ticket holders struggle to offload seats they no longer want.
In an attempt to ramp up sales, new tickets are being added daily to the official Paris 2024 ticketing app and website.
Claudio Villa/Getty
Many people purchased tickets early, but found their plans had changed as the Games grew closer.
For some it was the disappointment of finding they’d been allocated tickets for events or to watch teams that they didn’t have enough interested in. For some locals who purchased tickets, it was the frustration of all the disruption caused by the construction and security around their city that has driven them away.
In an attempt to recoup costs, many of those people have turned to the official ticket app — the only authorized resale market for Olympic event tickets. According to an analysis of the platform conducted by the Financial Times, active resale listings shot up from 180,000 to 270,000 over the past month alone.
Resellers may have expected Olympics fans to quickly snatch up their unwanted tickets, but they’ve been struggling to sell them at all.
The app prohibits ticket holders from setting their own resale prices, including at lower rates, and new tickets offered on the official ticketing website for the same events can be less expensive than resale offerings.
With no way to incentivize buyers, resellers on the official site have been left in a frustrating state of limbo, and with just a day to go and a glut of tickets still available, it’s raised some concern about the prospect of Olympians looking up to see empty seats.
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Yellowstone hiker burned when she falls into scalding water near Old Faithful, park officials say
Yellowstone National Park, Wyo. — A New Hampshire woman suffered severe burns on her leg after hiking off-trail in Yellowstone National Park and falling into scalding water in a thermal area near the Old Faithful geyser, park officials said.
The 60-year-old woman from Windsor, New Hampshire, along with her husband and their leashed dog were walking off a designated trail near the Mallard Lake Trailhead on Monday afternoon when she broke through a thin crust over the water and suffered second- and third-degree burns to her lower leg, park officials said. Her husband and the dog weren’t injured.
The woman was flown to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, Idaho for treatment.
National Park Service / Jacob W. Frank
Park visitors are reminded to stay on boardwalks and trails in hydrothermal areas and exercise extreme caution. The ground in those areas is fragile and thin and there’s scalding water just below the surface, park officials said.
Pets are allowed in limited, developed areas of Yellowstone park but are prohibited on boardwalks, hiking trails, in the backcountry and in thermal areas.
The incident is under investigation. The woman’s name wasn’t made public.
This is the first known thermal injury in Yellowstone in 2024, park officials said in a statement. The park had recorded 3.5 million visitors through August this year.
Hot springs have injured and killed more people in Yellowstone National Park than any other natural feature, the National Park Service said. At least 22 people have died from hot spring-related injuries in and around the 3,471-square-mile national park since 1890, park officials have said.