Tickets to the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials and hotel rooms throughout the Eugene-Springfield area are still available despite early projections from event organizers.
Projections called for sold-out tickets to Hayward Field and booked hotel rooms for miles around.
By the numbers
200 to 500 | Tickets still available for each of the remaining days of the Trials |
$22 to $57 | The price of tickets, depending on the event and seat location |
20 to 40 | Rooms available at the Red Lion Hotel |
However, those numbers never quite materialized; there are still tickets available for the Trials, and most hotels in town have rooms available through Sunday.
The availability should allow for many of the people once turned away to now find themselves sitting in the grandstands of historic Hayward Field, event organizers said.
“This is a fantastic opportunity to be a part of the Olympic Trials and the celebratory atmosphere of the Eugene 08 Festival,” said Kari Westlund, president and CEO of the Convention and Visitors Association of Lane County, in a prepared statement. “We are excited that more people will now have a chance to see the competition and actually be able to stay overnight in the metro area.”
Ticket sales have been close to projections, but about 200 to 500 tickets are still available for each of the four remaining days of the Trials, Eugene 08 spokeswoman Rita Radostitz said.
As of Wednesday afternoon at check-in time, the Franklin Boulevard Holiday Inn Express, just east of the University, was the only major hotel in the area to be completely full.
The number of available event tickets will vary between days, Radostitz said.
Friday’s 10,000m race featuring hometown favorite Galen Rupp and Fourth of July celebrations should sell out quickly along with Sunday’s finals, Radostitz said.
Ticket prices range between $32 and $50 each day, depending on the competition line-up and seat location. Tickets may be purchased on the University’s GoDucks Web site or at the ticket window at the Bowerman building on the south side of East 15th Avenue.
Back in March, Westlund told the Emerald she was expecting about 75,000 visitors to the Trials, but said recently that figure was based on other numbers that were misunderstood.
What she actually expected was about 10,000 out-of-town visitors for the Trials, Westlund said.
The 75,000 figure, she said, came from what are called “spectator days,” which is the number of days the Trials will run multiplied by the 15,000 seats that were estimated to be available at Hayward Field.
The equation figured for half of those 150,000 spectators to be local residents, hence the 75,000 figure previously reported.
“People got a little confused about the terminology,” she said.
Westlund estimated 10,000 visitors have most likely passed through already, and the total visitor count will likely be higher than anticipated with four days of the event remaining, she said.
So far an average of 20,000 people a day have visited the Trials, and more than 6,000 people have attended the Festival, according to event organizers.
One estimate that hasn’t been surpassed, or even met, is the number of booked hotel rooms in the greater Eugene area.
The Days Inn has four to nine rooms available through Sunday. The Eugene Hilton Hotel, in downtown Eugene, had 18 rooms available Wednesday night and 3 rooms available for the duration of the Trials, and the Red Lion Hotel, by the Oakway Shopping Center, has between 20 and 40 of its 137 total rooms available through Sunday.
“There’s a little more available than I would have anticipated,” Westlund said. “It’s not a crisis by any means, but I would have expected us to be a little more buttoned up than we are.”
Spectators who don’t want to purchase a ticket but still want to see an Olympic event can watch one this weekend. Athletes participating in the 20K Race Walking event will be competing along the Leo Harris Parkway, near Autzen Stadium.
The men’s race will begin at 7 a.m. on Saturday and the women’s competition will begin at 7 a.m. on Sunday.
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