Already applied
If you’re one of the three million people who entered the lottery for the first tranche of ticket sales for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, check your email (including your spam or junk folders).
You may be one of the lucky applicants able to pick up the first ‘packs’ of in-demand tickets before anyone else.
Over the next month, lottery winners will be informed by email, two hours before the ticketing site opens, after which they will have 48 hours to select events you want to build your ‘pack’ of tickets from the 3 million initially available – out of an overall total of 10 million.
The first emails were sent out on February 13th, but don’t despair if you haven’t received one – notifications of winners will continue until March 15th.
Each of the winners will be able to put together a pack of tickets, with a minimum of three tickets and a maximum of 30 per email account, with a maximum of six tickets per session.
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In this instance being quick does give you an advantage, as tickets will be sold on a first-come, first-serve basis – and winning a pack guarantees tickets to three events. But they may not be the events you want if you leave it too long to select your tickets.
Some of the biggest events, including the 100m final, the basketball final and the opening ceremony, will not be available in this first tranche.
This first sales bloc runs until March 15th, so do keep checking your emails as one could come at any time between now and then.
What happens if you’re not selected this time?
If March 15th comes around and you still haven’t received an email (and keep checking that spam folder too) then don’t panic – you can try your luck again in the single ticket sales phase, under the same lottery conditions, which starts on May 11th.
The process is the same as in the first phase – you sign up online after May 11th and are entered into the draw for tickets – the deadline for applications on this one is still TBC.
This sale covers all events including the 100m final, the basketball final and the opening ceremony – which were not available in phase one.
This time, however, you are bidding for single tickets for specified events.
Not applied yet
If you didn’t enter the draw for the first phase in time for the January 31st deadline, you can always enter the second phase – the process is as outlined above.
Next step
Once you have applied for the draw from May 11th, it’s the same process as phase one – the lucky winners will be informed by email and will have 48 hours to buy their tickets, subject to availability, once they have been informed that they have been selected.
So far, it has not been announced how many tickets will be available in the second stage of the draw.
And if I still haven’t won?
If you have been unlucky in both lotteries, there is still hope.
Towards the end of 2023 – again, no exact date beyond ‘autumn’ is available yet – remaining Olympic tickets will go on sale via the online ticketing site.
This time there is no draw, the tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis on the online site – the same as for standard sporting events, so being quick off the mark will help.
Tickets for the Paralympics will also go on sale in autumn 2023 – and at this stage it seems that these will be on a first-come, first-served basis too, no lotteries.
And if I still can’t get any tickets?
A final sales phase for the last Olympic tickets still available will be accessible “a priori at the end of 2023”. There is as yet no further detail on this.
Can you get tickets anywhere else?
For the first time ever, ticketing will be 100 percent digitalised and centralised on the same website, so it’s open to everyone around the world on exactly the same terms.
There has been a lot of work done on measures to stop ticket touting, probably these won’t all be successful but extreme caution is advised when buying from resale sites as these are not officially authorised.
The French government will buy 400,000 Olympic tickets, to “distribute to young people and schoolchildren, especially those under 16, to volunteers who contribute to the Games and to sport in France, to people with disabilities, to their caregivers, and to state and local government officials who help with the Games.”
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The Games organisers will also set up a ‘social ticketing’ site – exact date TBC – with up to 1 million tickets reserved for special groups, including young people from poor areas and volunteers who work for sports programmes throughout the year.
And, as ever, there will be corporate hospitality, so if you have no luck on the ticketing site then your best bet might be to make friends with someone who scored tickets through their work and buy one of the corporate hospitality packs.
The 2024 Olympic Games run from 26th July to 11th August 2024, followed by the Paralympic Games from 28th August to 8th September.
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