Champs tickets hot commodity
TICKETS for this year’s ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ & Girls’ Athletic Championships are a hot commodity as the 2010 centenary celebration of the annual high school track and field meet promises to be huge.
Champs organising committee chairperson Colleen Montague told the Sunday Observer that bookings for season tickets have been going like hot bread for the March 24-27 event.
“We’ve more demand for the tickets for the grandstand than we’re able to supply, and that’s the biggest challenge for us,” she said.
“We’re doing the best we can because the demand is greater this year than any other year. We want the public to understand that there are only 5,000 seats in the grandstand and we have to accommodate the media, the officials who are working in that area, and the special guests, so it’s a varied group and we have to accommodate these persons as well as to meet the needs of the general public,” she added.
Grandstand tickets are divided into Premium 1 and 2, with seats closest to the finish line costing $4,500 and $2,000 for other sections.
Twenty-two thousand (22,000) Bleachers tickets will be available at a cost of $350 for students in uniform and $500 for other persons on Friday, and $1,000 for everyone on Saturday.
Tickets for the opening ceremony on Tuesday, March 23, are free and will also be available at the Stadium ticket booth.
Montague told the Sunday Observer that ISSA will be going all out to ensure the integrity of sales.
“We’re going to be putting a limit on the number of tickets that any one person can purchase,” she said, while admitting that this would be a challenge.
“We can’t determine if the same person gets five different times; we really can’t control that, but we can try,” she said.
The Wolmer’s Girls’ principal said the integrity of the public was also important and implored unscrupulous persons to take stock of themselves.
“We’re really trying to tighten security in terms of entry into the various gates and at the check point to make sure we don’t have the bogus tickets or persons who are not accredited coming in.”
The lengths that scalpers will go to is also no secret to ISSA.
“We know that the scalpers are there and we’re hoping that the security measures that we put in place will be able to restrict their movements,” said Montague.
Tickets for the Championships go on sale on Friday, March 19 and will be available until March 21.