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Prices not Olympian
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February 8, 2002: 11:22 a.m. ET
Modestly priced tickets, rooms still available to visitors to 2002 Olympics.
By Staff Writer Chris Isidore
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SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN/Money) - Bargain is probably too strong a word, but the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City can still be affordable, with many lower priced hotel rooms and tickets still available.
Ticket prices are not cheap - the opening and closing ceremony tickets have a face price of $885 each, and many of the top events such as figure staking and hockey tickets go for hundreds of dollars each. By comparison, the top ticket price for the Super Bowl earlier this month was $400.
But many tickets cost less than $100 a piece, and fans won't have to go to scalpers or ticket brokers to get in to many of the events. About half of the 163 competitions that take place over the 17 days of the games still have tickets available either online or at walk-up ticket locations in the Salt Lake City area, such as many grocery stores. Almost 10 percent of the 1.6 million tickets to the games remain unsold at this point, including some to the pricey opening and closing ceremonies.
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Tickets are still available for some 2002 Winter Olympic events. | |
"You could probably spend $200 a day for two people, get tickets to most things and get something to eat," said Dee Dee Hill, general manager for Smith's Tixs, which has the contract to handle walk-up ticket sales for the games.
Outdoor competitions generally have a lower face price on tickets than indoor events, such as figure skating or hockey. The Nordic sports, such as cross country skiing and the biathlon, which combines skiing and shooting, offer the games' cheapest tickets at as low as $25.
But there are exceptions. Ski jumping, which has the advantage of spectators being able to watch the entire competition rather than have the Olympians shoot past them in a second or two, has ticket prices as high as $190 for its finals, while the indoor sport of curling, popular in Canada and some European countries but not much of a draw with U.S. fans, has tickets for as cheap as $35.
Rooms still available
As for accommodations, most if not all hotel and motels have raised their rates during the Olympics. But prices for rooms in the Salt Lake City/Ogden area start at a very low base. Smith Travel Research says that last February the average room in the area cost only a bit over $78.
"Even if it's twice what it normally is, it might be what people are used to paying elsewhere normally," said Jason Mathis, spokesman for the Salt Lake City Convention and Visitors Bureau.
There are still some $75 rooms listed on the game's official Web site but those rooms are limited and generally not right in Salt Lake City or some of the other Olympic venues in the state.
Mathis says that most visitors to the Olympics are expected to stay only three of four days. Corporations and sponsors arranging trips for their clients to the Olympics are generally bringing four different groups of people in for about four days each, Mathis said.
Some out-of-state visitors may be staying for one or the other week of the competition, but relatively few outside of those with direct ties to the event are expected to stay the full 17 days. That means that many rooms can still be found.
The weekend of Feb. 16 and 17 is a difficult time to still find rooms - both because of the overlap of demand by people staying the first or second week, and because the President's Day holiday creates extra demand. But many hotels have mid-week rooms available.
Rental cars may be more difficult to find than tickets or hotel rooms, Mathis said.
At the Salt Lake City airport Thursday night all the various rental car companies had cars available, even to those without reservations, although Avis said it could only rent a car through Saturday. But all are charging between $80 and $90 a day for a compact car, about triple their normal rates. Then again, there is low cost bus service and other forms of public transportation to help move around visitors. 
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