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Olympic Games 2024: a solidarity ticket office will offer places to disadvantaged audiences
Free tickets to attend the Olympic and Paralympic Games events will be distributed starting in April, particularly in the communities hosting the events. This is an opportunity for Paris 2024 to show that these games will be inclusive and not elitist, as it was often criticized when the official ticket office opened last year.
Paris is preparing to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, and is offering solidarity ticketing for more disadvantaged audiences. (Illustrative image). © AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff
By: Amélie Beaucour
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Of the 12.8 million tickets issued for the
2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games
, 80% were put on sale for individuals, intended for visitors from around the world. The remaining 20% was reserved, from the start, for sports federations and associations, corporate partners of the Olympic Games, but also and above all for host local authorities: town halls, metropolises, departments or regions which host events on their territory.
Popular ticketing is this reservoir of places available to these communities and which will be redistributed free of charge to residents who cannot afford places. This represents around one million tickets, according to the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJOP).
Tickets purchased largely
by these local authorities
or donated by the organizer itself, Paris 2024. “
We donated a total envelope of 100,000 tickets
”, underlines Marie Barsacq, director of the Heritage and Impact branch. , from COJOP. A third is intended exclusively for Seine-Saint-Denis, a department north of Paris, which hosts seven Olympic meeting venues, including the athletes' village and the Stade de France. Because it is not because we live next to such a place that we can afford to open its doors.
Who are these posts for?
With this popular ticketing, Paris 2024 wishes to guarantee access to the
games for priority audiences
, “
people with disabilities, people in precarious or excluded situations, young people and school audiences, young people licensed from the sports movement , or to people from priority areas of the city
,” we can read on the official website.
In Seine-Saint-Denis, nearly 180,000 tickets will be distributed: 150,000 for the events, and 28,000 for the opening ceremony on the high banks of the Seine. By totalizing the places acquired (by purchase or by donation) by municipalities, communities of communes, the Greater Paris metropolis, the department, the region, but also the State, it is estimated that one in ten inhabitants will be able to attend an event or the opening ceremony without paying.
🎟️A key moment for the @Paris2024 Games: during the press conference on popular ticketing!
In total, 180,000 places will be reserved for @seinesaintdenis, with particular attention paid to impacted populations.⤵️ pic.twitter.com/5uJTV4BQ42
— Mathieu Hanotin (@MathieuHanotin) March 26, 2024
How are they distributed?
Each community has its own distribution policy. The Île-de-France region, which has 50,000 places, has chosen to focus on 15-25 year olds. 30,000 tickets are already up for grabs via the Labaz application. She also launched a call for applications from the 500 high schools in the region to try to win around thirty places per establishment, enough to send an entire class.
The city of Saint-Denis wants to favor sporting audiences. “
We must reward those who keep sport alive in the region
,” says Mayor Mathieu Hanotin. He hopes to create a breath of fresh air to encourage sports practice, a major public health issue according to him.
Across the territory of Plaine Commune, a group of nine towns of which Saint-Denis is a part, it has 32,000 places to distribute. Part of it will also be directed towards those who suffer the nuisances of the event (night work, traffic disruptions) or who will live in the red zone, in this large controlled perimeter where motorized vehicles will no longer be able to circulate during more than two months.
“
This concerns 20,000 people
,” calculates Mathieu Hanotin.
Not everyone will be able to go to the stadium, 100% does not exist, but we hope that those who are most impacted can participate
in the Olympic and Paralympic Games
.
»
How will communities distribute tickets within these target audiences?
The distribution is still unclear and not all communities are at the same stage. In Saint-Denis, Olympics and fairs will be organized in schools in the coming months and competitions will make it possible to sell part of the vouchers. Conversely, the metropolis of Marseille, for example, which purchased 2,500 tickets, does not yet know who exactly it is sending them to and how it will do so.
What events do the tickets give access to?
It all depends initially on the disciplines available in the geographical area of the community. In Lyon, whose metropolis and city have both received 2,000 tickets
from Paris 2024
, there is only one Olympic meeting place: the Groupama Stadium, where football matches will only take place. Same thing in Nantes and Saint-Etienne.
In Saint-Denis, on the other hand, the choice is wider. “
We chose sports that specifically appeal to our audience
,” explains Mathieu Hanotin. Among them: basketball, football, table tennis, trampoline - because France's representative in this discipline was trained in Saint-Denis. And, the icing on the cake, the city managed to obtain the Holy Grail of events: athletics, with the men's 100 meters final at the Stade de France, the prices of which are between 125 and 980 euros at individual ticket offices. .
Also read: “For them, the game is over”: the Les Morts de la Rue collective warns of social cleansing before the Olympics
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