Attendance puzzling for 30th SEA Games

Three months before the country hosts the Southeast Asian Games, the organizing committee for the 11-nation sports conclave seems to be ignoring the “A” word.

Attendance and ways to ensure that fans will be out to support the home team for the 30th edition of the subcontinental athletic competition of 56 sports and 530 events remain up in the air.

William Ramirez, chair of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) and chief of mission of Team Philippines, disclosed the other day that the printing and sale of tickets to the SEA Games have been delayed for almost a year.

“That’s the duty and function of the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (Phisgoc),” Ramirez said. “Up to now, we are still waiting.”

The PSC chair has expressed concern that sports fans may not even know when and how to get to the 53 venues in Clark, Subic, Metro Manila, Cavite, Batangas, Laguna and La Union.

This late in the game, a marketing plan to attract fans to the multisports event on Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 appears to be a work in progress.

Raoul Floresca of Phisgoc’s marketing division said once “all competition venues are final” some time in September, tickets will be printed for nationwide distribution by SM Tickets, said to be the country’s biggest ticketing provider.

The Philippine delegation to next year’s Olympic Summer Games will be an extremely lucky bunch.

The Tokyo Olympiad is shaping up to be the most expensive and most attended ever.

So if you are NOT an athlete, coach, official, or news representative accredited through the Philippine Olympic Committee for the Olympic Village and Games venues, you just priced yourself out of your dream to witness the greatest sports show on earth.

But there is still a way to snag those pricey Olympic tickets and hotels, if you are rich, a resident of Japan and have $60 thousand (roughly P3.2 million) to spare.

A year to go before the Games, the Associated Press (AP) reports that the P3.2 million-hospitality package offered by Olympic organizers to Japan residents will be “good for the opening and closing ceremony, nine days of track and field, luxury seating and sumptuous dining. Lower end packages dip down to about $1500 (around P78,000) for one session at a less popular event.”

Japan residents not interested in the “hospitality packages” could take part in the so-called second chance lottery in autumn to snag tickets, while people outside the country will have to go through “authorized ticket resellers” now flooded with requests to capture tickets tied to expensive hotel deals.

Reporting about hotels, the AP said a “random search of well-known hotel booking sites found rooms to be in the range of $1000 to $1500 a night with few available.”

“Even Japan’s famous capsule hotels—or sleep pods—will cost more to crawl inside with prices up three to four times on booking sites,” according to the AP.