Tickets for the Rio Olympic Games this summer are still available and are the cheapest since Beijing in 2008, but the buying process has been grueling for some.
The games, which kick off on Aug. 5, have been made more accessible for Americans, as a visa is not required to visit Brazil from June 1 to Sept. 18. Ticket prices are also more affordable than previous Olympic Games.
But with Zika virus scares, economic issues, and crime worries, ticket purchasing has lagged.
By April, just half of the tickets had been sold, Brazil’s new minister of sports, Ricardo Leyser, told Folha.
Rio2016.com only began selling tickets to those outside of Brazil on June 1; before that, Brazilians had a chance to buy first. Meanwhile, those overseas have been buying their passes through other websites like CoSport.com. But many are complaining that the process is laborious and the tickets are much more expensive than on the Rio2016 site.
Buying Tickets
Celine Moorer, 35, from Maryland, is traveling to Brazil with two friends for the games. She bought some tickets almost 2 months ago through CoSport, but was unimpressed.
“I didn’t like the process of CoSport and tickets were always sold out, but the news was saying it was available,” said Moorer. “CoSport made it seem like tickets were sold out.”
First, she had to fill out her personal information and create a username and password.
Then, Moorer said, she and her friends had to wait in an online queue for 2 hours—there was a lottery system to buy tickets and they had to request their preferences.
Out of the multiple requests she and her friends made, Moorer was the only one who got tickets.
But when she went to purchase them, the tickets were suddenly pulled out of her cart. She says it happened because she didn’t respond fast enough—yet there was no timer on the webpage for how long the tickets could be held.
She started the process again and was able to get three track and field tickets and two gymnastics tickets.
Moorer purchased the two gymnastics tickets through CoSport for $262. Each ticket was about a $100, but she had to pay more in fees.
Last week, she checked for tickets on the Rio2016 website after hearing from a Facebook group that the site was offering cheaper tickets. She found tickets for gymnastics and bought one for only $77, including fees.
