(Reuters) -Fans from around the world will have the opportunity to secure their places at the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Tuesday when general ticket sales resume, with demand seen high despite the cost involved.
The Olympics will run from February 6-22, 2026, with the Paralympics to follow in March. The Games will be co-hosted by Milan and the Alpine town of Cortina d'Ampezzo.
The lowest ticket price will be 30 euros ($32.9) while 57% of tickets will be sold at prices of up to 100 euros, the organisers said. For the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, around 50% of tickets were sold for 50 euros or less.
Prices climb to 1,400 euros for the men's ice hockey final - the most expensive sporting event of the Games - and up to 1,200 euros for the figure skating gala.
In Paris, the most expensive tickets, which were for the men's basketball final and some athletics sessions including the one featuring the men's 100 metres, were priced at 980 euros.
Rising ticket prices for major events are a common complaint among sports fans.
The closing ceremony, to be held in the city of Verona, will be the most expensive event of the Winter Games, with prices ranging from 950 euros to 2,900 euros. Tickets for the opening ceremony in Milan will range from 260 euros to 2,026 euros.
However, the cost has not dampened enthusiasm so far.
The success of the first phase of sale in early February, when limited numbers of tickets were available, led organisers to add a second sales window in late February.
"Purchasing tickets was a smooth and easy process," Ed Schneider Junior, who lives in New York State and bought in the early window, told Reuters.
"However, the prices I encountered for the figure skating and short track tickets, the preliminary rounds, areextremelyhigh," he added.
In these two sales windows 613,000 tickets were sold, the organisers said, just over 40% of total capacity.
"In addition to the large number of tickets sold in Italy, significant demand has come from Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and France," they added.
For the Paralympic Winter Games, whose general ticket sales started on March 6, 90% of tickets are priced at up to 35 euros. At Paris' Paralympic Summer Games around 50% of tickets were sold at 25 euros or less.
($1 = 0.9114 euros)
(Reporting by Alberto ChiumentoEditing by Keith Weir and Christian Radnedge)
