More tickets are now available

New tickets to the hottest Olympic events are ready for purchase — the only catch is you have to have special status to get the first shot at them.

The Salt Lake Organizing Committee announced Monday that current ticket holders, people who tried unsuccessfully to buy tickets and Olympic volunteers and staff will be given the first chance to buy an additional 70,000 tickets beginning Oct. 3 at 10 a.m. The tickets include 52,000 to single events and 18,000 Olympic Experience Package tickets.

The tickets became available when the various national Olympic committees worldwide returned extra tickets. Also, additional seating was created when SLOC finalized its venue seating configurations.

Individuals who don't already have tickets will be able to purchase the new stock beginning Oct. 8 at 10 a.m.

Ticket buyers can purchase tickets online at SLOC's Web site, www.saltlake2002.com or by calling 1-800-TICKETS.

Starting Oct. 15, whatever tickets aren't purchased via the Web site or through 1-800-TICKETS will go on sale at Smith'sTix across Utah.

Some of the newly available tickets are for the opening ceremony, men's and women's figure skating, speedskating, men's and women's ice hockey, freestyle aerials, ski jumping and downhill skiing.

SLOC expects approximately 756 of the 70,000 tickets to be sold on Oct. 11 as part of an eBay auction.

Those tickets include front-row tickets to the opening ceremony and gold medal ice-hockey tickets.

Seats are still available to all events except men's qualifying snowboard, men's and women's giant slalom qualifying snowboard, men's and women's giant slalom snowboard, and men's and women's giant slalom finals.

The new stock means that some 270,000 tickets are still available for the Games.

Public ticket sales began one year ago with prices ranging from $20 to as much as $885 for a seat at the opening or closing ceremonies at the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium. It's still unclear exactly what the effect the recent terrorist attacks and threats of terrorism will have on the ticket sales. More than 83 percent of the 2002 Winter Games tickets have already been sold. In the past two weeks, only 14 people have inquired about returns on their tickets, according to SLOC officials. SLOC's has a no refund policy regarding ticket returns.

SLOC needs to raise $180 million from the sale of tickets to balance its more than $1.3 billion budget.

Olympic organizers have been criticized in the past for auctioning off some of the best seats at the most popular events on eBay to the highest bidder. A pair of front-row seats to men's figure skating with a face value of $750 went for $11,100.

The competition schedule features the largest sports program in Olympic Winter Games history with competition in 78 events from 15 sports/disciplines over a 17-day period.

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E-MAIL: sgiles@desnews.com