Excitement over ‘affordable’ L.A. Olympics turns to angry sticker shock over high-priced tickets

Andie Pangan did not even conceive of the possibility she would fail to snag tickets for tennis or climbing events at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

She has been watching tennis since she was young and desperately wanted tickets for a chance to see Filipina breakout star Alex Eala, who she hopes will qualify and be a trailblazer for the Philippines in the Olympics.

But when she logged on the website at 10 a.m. Monday, the start of her ticket-buying time slot, all the events she had even remotely wanted had sold out, were unavailable or were well out of her price range, more than $1,000.

“I was shocked. Even climbing was all gone,” said Pangan, who lives 10 minutes from the Carson Stadium, which will serve as an Olympic venue. “I never really thought I would come out of this presale without getting anything.”

In a city filled with excitement about hosting the 2028 Games, the dream has collided with sticker shock as tickets finally went on sale.

Typically, tickets that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars are reserved for seats at half court, the 50-yard line or a concert front row.

Customers were shocked to find that tickets for LA28, which officials billed as “affordable” for locals, could cost a small fortune. Tickets for a single seat at the opening ceremony were costing between $329 and $5,519, and the cheaper tickets were selling quickly. Some were able to buy cheap $28 tickets for desired events such as the women’s soccer semifinals, but others saw comparable prices only for preliminary events and less popular sports such as badminton and judo.

To add to frustration, some logging on during their time slots last week were booted off and routed to a webpage showing an “Access Denied” message.

Kirsten Simitzi, 50, of San Fernando Valley logged on at 10 a.m. sharp for her time slot Friday. But for 2½ hours she got the error message and could not access the pool of tickets until 12:30 p.m., by which time, she said, “the pickings were slim.”

She expected to see more cheap tickets added by the time her mom had her chance over the weekend, or during her sister’s slot on Monday. But tickets had grown only more expensive, she said.

“They made it sound like, ‘You’re a local, you’ll get $28 tickets.’ But it didn’t happen, the tickets were just gone,” Simitzi said.

Tickets are still selling at a rapid clip, a sign of the deep excitement over the first L.A. Games since 1984.

LA28 said in a statement regarding website errors that “any issues that have been reported have not been widespread, and have been resolved.”

“We’re excited by the level of interest and enthusiasm in LA28 tickets,” it said. “At any point in time, fans who experience technical difficulty can reach us on any of our support channels to help facilitate a smooth experience.”

LA28 has said that tickets in the more affordable price ranges will be made available in future ticket drops, which will be open to those who don’t live in the counties closest to the Olympic venues.

LA28 said the 24% ticket fee on Olympics tickets aligns “with standard industry practices for ticketing live events” and covers the costs of securely processing and delivering tickets.

“All-in pricing is displayed upfront, included within the prices people see as they shop, and a breakdown of the price and service fees are provided at checkout for further transparency,” LA28 said in an emailed statement.

Pangan, 28, who lives in Torrance, felt confused that her friend who lives in Orange County was able to get desirable cheap tickets for swimming, track and tennis.

“I’m happy for her, but I told her I feel very jealous. I should have asked her to buy tickets for us,” Pangan said.

Pangan said she will try her best for tickets again in future drops.

Each fan is allowed to buy a maximum 12 tickets across all Olympic events with an additional 12 tickets for soccer matches. The opening and closing ceremonies have a maximum of four tickets per ceremony, and those are included in the general 12-ticket maximum.

Fans who won a time slot in this drop but didn’t reach the ticket maximum will be automatically entered into subsequent ticket lotteries until they max out their ticket allotment.

But the rules are somewhat confusing: LA28 clarified that even though fans have additional allotments for soccer tickets, if they hit their maximum of 12 Olympics tickets, regardless of the number of soccer tickets purchased, they will not be eligible for future drops.

Ticket drops coming later this year at an as-yet undetermined date will follow the same sequence as the first: a registration period that is free to enter, a random lottery that assigns time slots for purchasing and 48-hour time slots during which fans can log in to purchase tickets.

Each drop has a wide swath of tickets across different sports, sessions and price points, but not every ticket is released at the same time. Future drops could have tickets to events that were unavailable or ran out during the first drops.

It was easy for Harris Auerbach, 56, of Agoura Hills to get in the queue to purchase tickets during his Monday time slot, but when he and his wife, who were looking to purchase tickets for their daughters and some extended family, saw the cost of tickets for track events, they “were blown away” by prices “in the stratosphere.”

And in particular Auerbach was shocked there were zero tickets available for the opening ceremony, while closing ceremony tickets started at $4,900 apiece before fees.

“When we found out about the 24% service charge, it was just sort of icing on the cake,” Auerbach said.

Auerbach, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, said he remembers with fondness attending the 1984 L.A. Olympics, the festivity and camaraderie in the air. He wanted to recapture that experience, but said the sticker shock left a bad taste, and he does not plan to peruse tickets in future drops. His family, he said, will use that time and money to travel instead.

Auerbach, who runs a thoroughbred horse racing and breeding operation, has been to myriad sporting events, including the Kentucky Derby, the NBA Finals and World Series, and he can’t remember ever paying more than $400 for the Final Four men’s basketball national championship. He said the prices would be prohibitive for people such as his wife, a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“I don’t know how they can go. I don’t know how they can afford it. It’s a missed opportunity for the Olympics and for the area,” he said.

LA28 announced a fundraiser to give away tickets to locals, but details on how they would be distributed have not been announced.

The L.A. Olympics organizers said that about 5% of all tickets would be priced at more than $1,000 and that 75% would be under $400. But prices certainly seem higher than in past years. In the last Summer Olympics in Paris, tickets for the high-profile sport of swimming on a night of finals typically went for 690 euros. That’s $795 in current U.S. dollars. The maximum price for swimming finals was 980 euros.

Exorbitant service fees on tickets are unique to U.S. venues and typically come from the practice of bundling financing, distribution and venue costs into “one opaque price,” said Ahmed Nimale, a former Live Nation executive and chief executive at KYD Labs, a ticketing provider in New York City. In Europe, service fees are typically in the single digits.

Nimale said the optics of the Olympics promising affordable tickets to local residents but on some counts failing to deliver show a need for a different system. Although the Olympics has enlisted multiple companies including AXS and Ticketmaster for a ticket resale platform that will open next year, that platform probably won’t improve prices for fans, Nimale said, with tickets “priced up substantially” on resale platforms.

“Is this the best experience? For fans to be priced out potentially due to higher fees?” Nimale said. “My question is, are fans really getting the best shot to get tickets in the first place? There’s a need for transparency here that’s building.”

Times staff writer Jim Rainey contributed to this report.