Tickets for world juniors games in Victoria are nearly sold out thanks to a big change in marketing philosophy.
Organizers of the 2019 International Ice Hockey Federation U-20 world championship tournament 鈥� popularly referred to in sa国际传媒 simply as the world juniors 鈥� hoped to avoid the low-attendance woes that plagued the last two tournaments at Toronto and Montreal in 2016-17 and Buffalo, New York, in 2017-18.
The Victoria and Vancouver host organizing committee appears to have done just that after the acres of empty seats that were on display in Buffalo.
Tom Renney, CEO of Hockey sa国际传媒, admits to 鈥渙vershooting the runway鈥� in terms of pricing when sa国际传媒 hosted in Toronto and Montreal.
The goal this time was to bring it back to junior-hockey pricing and not big-market pricing.
It has worked.
Fourteen-game ticket packages, which have sold out, were priced in the hundreds of dollars, rather than $1,000-plus. Individual tickets, if available, are as low as $29 for the initial games, and as low as $50 for the quarter-finals.
鈥淲e have sold 90 per cent of the tickets in Vancouver and 97聽per cent of the tickets in Victoria,鈥� said Barry Petrachenko, CEO of sa国际传媒 Hockey and co-chair of the 2019 organizing committee with Vancouver Giants owner RonToigo.
Capacity for Rogers Arena in Vancouver is 18,910. It鈥檚 7,006 for Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria. Pool A, which includes host sa国际传媒, is playing at Rogers Arena while Victoria is hosting Pool B.
鈥淲e have exceeded our target, which was 90 per cent capacity. We have only a very limited number of tickets remaining, especially in Victoria,鈥� said Petrachenko. 鈥淲e have been gratified by the response.鈥�
Twelve games, all the Pool B matches beginning today, and two playoff quarter-finals on Jan. 2, will be played in Victoria.
Any remaining tickets go on sale at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre box office at 10聽a.m. on the day of the games, selectyourtickets.com or by phoning 250-220-7777.
