In a turbulent 24 hours or so for the fans of the Eurovision Song Contest, the ticket situation is now calming down. Earlier today, esctoday.com broke the news that the initial confirmation that the Final in Helsinki on Saturday 12th May was in fact not sold out, as reported officially yesterday. At least two blocks in the Arena were made available to purchase on a per-ticket basis late yesterday evening, and fans calling up today were able to purchase them. We have now received official confirmation from the ticket office manager, Sepo Keski-pukkila of Lippupalvelu and Eurovision Song Contest co-producer Kjell Ekholm that the final really is now sold out, as is the semi final.
esctoday.com have been in close discussions through-out the day with YLE, the Finnish national broadcaster responsible for the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest and Lippupalvelu, the ticketing agency charged with responisibility for organising the sale of tickets for the event. Initially this morning, we discovered that due to an error, two blocks of tickets in the upper tier of the arena were still available to purchase. In addition, a small number of ticket orders had been cancelled or exchanged for packages, meaning that international fans had a second chance to purchase tickets.
Speaking to Kjell Ekholm this evening, esctoday.com has discovered that both the Final and the Semi Final of the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest completely sold out at approximately 17:00 CET. In addition, the 2nd and 3rd dress rehearsals for the final are sold out and their are only single seats available for the last semi final dress rehearsal.
Regarding the error that allowed two blocks of seats to remain unsold yesterday, we were told: "I was following the sales on a PC where I could see the sales, it was completely sold out within 2 hours and 40 minutes. For some reason some, this did not show. Some tickets available today were due to cancellations, the rest, I am not sure as yet. I know that for sure, both the final and the semi-final are now comlpetely sold out and so are the dress rehearsals for the final."
The shows with tickets remaining are:
Semi-Final 1st Dress Rehearsal 09 MAY 2007 (Wednesday) 14:00EET €10 AVAILABLE
Semi-Final 2nd Dress Rehearsal 09 MAY 2007 (Wednesday) 21:00EET €20 AVAILABLE
Semi-Final 3rd Dress Rehearsal 10 MAY 2007 (Thursday) 14:00EET €20 SINGLE SEATS ONLY LEFT
Semi-Final 10 MAY 2007 (Thursday) 22:00SOLD OUT
Final 1st Dress Rehearsal 11 MAY 2007 SOLD OUT
Final 2nd Dress Rehearsal 11 MAY 2007 SOLD OUT
Final 3rd Dress Rehearsal 12 MAY 2007 SOLD OUT
Final 12 MAY 2007 (Saturday) 22:00 SOLD OUT
This does not mean fans will not have a further opportunity to purchase tickets. Fans in Finland have three days to make payment for their tickets, or they will go back into the sales field. Kjell Ekholm recommends that "you have to be aware of the situation that you have to pay for the tickets within three days in Finland, so it is worth checking again on Wednesday or Thursday".
Any cancellation tickets will be available on the internet or via the international telephone number. Both are listed below:
- http://www1.ticketservicefinland.fi/Start
- Telephone number forinternational fans: + 358 3036 00 30
