The announcement about the Eurovision Song Contest ticket sales starting already on Monday has taken the contest fan community by surprise. On many previous occasions the ticket sales have not started until January or February, but this year the Swedish organisers SVT wanted to rush to start the sales early enough so that people could buy tickets as Christmas presents. The announcement of the fan area being standing room only was taken with a very mixed reaction in the community, and now a very small quantity of seats has been added to the back of the standing room floor for those who genuinely can’t stand for up to four hours during the shows.
According to reports, the whole capacity in Malmö Arena for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest will be around 11 500 people. The exact amount will be confirmed after the exact places of all technical arrangements will be clear. The floor area will not have any seats, but around 2000 places for standing fans.
The places on the floor will be sold exclusively to members of the Eurovision fan clubs during a week-long pre-sale period. This pre-sale will start on Monday 26 November and last until 3 December. After that the remaining unsold standing zone tickets, if any, will be sold to the general public. The local fan clubs are urging their members to contact them before the weekend to express their wish to buy the fan sector tickets, so that the ticket allocations between the different clubs can be made accordingly. Some of the bigger clubs, like OGAE UK, have however already compiled their own lists of those wanting tickets, and it will be too late to join those.
It has now also been revealed that a bank of 68 seats in total will be provided at the back of the floor area, and with a restricted view as there will be people standing in front. These will be allocated for fan club members with genuine mobility problems or fans wanting to bring small children to the concert. Apart from the small seated zone there will be three different zones on the floor area, divided between the different fan clubs.
The tickets are available for the fan club members are sold in a package at 345 Euros each. The packages include tickets for all the three televised live shows as well as the jury dress rehearsals from the night before. There are no individual tickets available in the fan club pre-sale, the individual tickets must be bought in the general sale, as well as tickets for the normal seats. Even the fan tickets have to be bought using the official ticnet.se ticketing site using a credit card.
Instructions for all the ticket sales on the official Eurovision site.
OGAE (Organisation Générale des Amateurs de l’Eurovision ) is the oldest international fan club, founded in Finland in 1984. There are national branches in most countries that have ever taken part in the Eurovision Song Contest, as well as one covering the rest of the world. Since 1998 fan club members have been able to negotiate a number of seats in the front of the arena for their members, helping at the same time the organisers to guarantee a party atmosphere for the TV show with the colourful fans with their flags and banners for the live TV pictures.
Source: OGAE International/esctoday.com
