Not sure I grasp this? What does the town its in ( Track frigg'in town USA! with the best f'in running trails I've ever been blessed to run on, Pacific NW, green, lush, ,,,) have to do with ticket prices? You'd pay more to be in L.A.?, Sacramento?, Des Moines? NYC?.....
It's no doubt going to sell out - from many people's perspective that alone means it's not overpriced.
Ultimately people who think it's worth it will pay for it, and those who don't... won't. I doubt there is a resale market - so the people who buy tickets are likely intent on going. The problem really is the lack of adequate lodging.
For tickets to all sessions my cost was $1400 pp. For lodging within Eugene (but not walking distance to anything) it was $2300 pp.
In terms of attendance - when it's all said and done I'd bet that worlds will: - "sell out" in the sense of all tickets being sold - have a full stadium for weekend sessions - have mostly full stadium for weekday evening evening sessions (and daytime sessions with major finals) - have sparsely attended daytime sessions
LRC's take on the cost for a 4 day weekend trip to worlds was probably pretty close - it's damn expensive but if you really want to see worlds and have some cash to burn you make it happen:
LRC wrote:
For two people from the east coast: Flights: $1,236 Tickets: $840 Lodging: $3000 Rental car: $600 Meals/miscellaneous expenses: $1000 Total: $6676 (maybe $4176 if you are willing to stay out of town)
Eugene is a podunk town indeed and the reason why I'm giving World's a miss this year. First time since 2007 that I will be missing an event.
I am on the distro list for early release of tickets. Last year when tickets were first released, I decided to have a quick play around to see if I could get tickets, as I am planning for Worlds in Budapest next year and wanted to test everything. Well, for the first two months after early release, there were no tickets available at the finish line. But early this year, they sent notification that tickets were available after claiming that over 100K tickets were sold. For a full month after the second notification - I could get tickets for every session (morning and evening) at the finish line. First time in all the years I have been attending that I have noticed this.
I was looking a tickets today and the prices are INSANE. If you want to go for the full day, it's going to run you around $200!
Sounds about rigticht.
When exactly was the last time the US even hosted worlds? It's a marquee and global event.
It should be. But World Athletics meets are mismanaged by rah-rah volunteer HS track coaches with P/E degrees who only know how to make speeches from public relations scripts. World Athletics meetings have always been valued very low the same as the Tic Tac Toe World Championships ;-) This time the 2022 World Athletics Championships tickets are dirt cheap because it's in a dead town no one wants to visit. Most people will be staying in Seattle and flying into Eugene for a day or two. Hope this helps.
I was looking a tickets today and the prices are INSANE. If you want to go for the full day, it's going to run you around $200!
Look at Super Bowl tickets and the Super Bowl is an American thing. This is the World Champs (the real world, not the mythical NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB world).
18 years ago I paid $110 for tickets to the Millrose Games in the Garden.
How much is a ticket to only one playoff game (3 hours) in the first round of the MLB playoffs? Looks like the cheapest tickets are about $100 for just one game, good seats are $400-$1k depending on who's playing. And then even more for the world series, which is more the equivalent of the world championships. MLB world series starts at $300 for a 3 hour game and good seats can be thousands of dollars per game.
$100 to get in for a session at the world championships sounds about right.
Was it possible to buy tickets to all the sessions?
$100 sounds reasonable to me to get in the door except for like Day1 morning session and Day4 morning session (But i see the cheap seats for that I think are $25 and $10 for kids). World Athletics has started putting some finals in the morning session but not on Day 1. Day 4 has the marathon final but that's it.
Usually they are giving free tickets away to local kids for morning sessions and its not full but that was in much bigger stadiums.
And they don't have many tickets to sell compared to a normal words which is in a much bigger stadium.
Say there are 5,000 seats reserved. That means maybe 15,000 seats to sell. A more traditional worlds is going to have double or triple that to sell.
Even if you get a seat in the upper deck, you're very close to the action assuming you're not in a temporary seat. Not a bad seat in the normal stadium.
Someone could also probably figure out how many temporary seats are being built. Doesn't look like that many on the seating chart.
So most of the back turn will be kept open. Considering the stadium only seats 12,650 I'm think they'll have under 20,000 seats. Anyone think I'm wrong on that?
Late last year they told me the temporary seats hadn't been finalized and they expected between 20 and 25,000.
Agreed, they'll have less than 20,000 seats total. Could they squeeze in more? Probably. But with demand fairly tepid, no need. I still think the USATF Outdoor Champs this year are a more desirable (and way less expensive) ticket. Almost like an Olympic Trials where Top 3 head to World Champs the next month (and in the same stadium).
I was looking a tickets today and the prices are INSANE. If you want to go for the full day, it's going to run you around $200!
Sounds about right.
When exactly was the last time the US even hosted worlds? It's a marquee and global event.
A marquee and global event held in a podunk little town... Idiotic. Marquee events should be held in major cities that will draw crowds both domestic and international. Of the 10s of people I have had the fortune of meeting at many Worlds Championships, only one of us is going to Eugene this year and it has nothing to do with COVID.
Someone I know knows a guy who has worked at Hayward Field in the past putting up the temporary seats and he said with the new stadium they won't be able to put up more than 5,000 temporary seats.
So 12,500 permanent seats plus 5,000 temporary seats is a total of only 17,500 seats.
I still think the USATF Outdoor Champs this year are a more desirable (and way less expensive) ticket. Almost like an Olympic Trials where Top 3 head to World Champs the next month (and in the same stadium).
Yes, because of the cost there will probably be a lot of people who decide to go to the much cheaper USAs or Prefontaine instead of the World Championships.
Which does nothing to increase the popularity of the sport in the USA when a marquee event is held in a podunk, hard and expensive to get to lil out town with not much of an infrastructure to accommodate visitors.