Attendance
As part of their bid, the two cities projected that they would generate a tournament record attendance in excess of 475,000 fans and provide an economic benefit of $42 million to the province of Alberta. Following a reserved offering of 10- and 21-game ticket packs for Edmonton and Calgary games respectively to season ticket holders of the Oilers, Oil Kings, Flames and Hitmen, the tournament committee held a lottery to award the right to purchase the remaining seats. While the entry deadline was supposed to coincide with the conclusion of the 2011 tournament, organizers were flooded with so many entries that their website servers crashed. Organizers were overwhelmed by the response; over 187,000 entries were received for the draw.
Calling the demand unprecedented, Hockey Canada announced that the 17,000 ticket packages made available to lottery winners had sold out in a matter of days, a year in advance of the tournament. While organizers were pleased with the result, the way the lottery was handled has angered fans who won the right to purchase tickets but were unable to do so as no tickets were left when their turn to buy arrived.
Ultimately, a new attendance record was set, but not by the margin initially anticipated. The total of 455,342 fans was 2,060 fans more than the previous record of 453,282 from 2009. Though many more tickets were sold as part of tournament packages, the IIHF only counts tickets actually used in its figures.
Read more about this topic: 2012 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships
Famous quotes containing the word attendance:
“We, too, had good attendance once,
Hearers and hearteners of the work;
Aye, horsemen for companions,
Before the merchant and the clerk
Breathed on the world with timid breath.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)