“Games fever” boosts sales

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33444, 28 January 1974, Page 20

“Games fever” boosts sales

“I think that we are now in the grip of Games fever, and I feel sure that the run on tickets will continue.” said the chairman of the Games tickets committee (Mr J. E. Davies) last evening.

He was commenting on the demand for tickets during the first three days of Games competition. Mr Davies expressed confidence that rhe paid attendance in Christchurch would exceed 300,000 and that ticket revenue would reach $1,250,000, or $368,000 more than the budgeted income I from this source. “We have virtually filled Queen Elizabeth II Park ■ stadium on Friday and Saturday, and came within about ,2000 of doing the same on Sunday,” he said. I “This is a tremendous thing for amateur athletics, even though it is the Commonwealth Games.

“That we have achieved this with our small population show’s the enthusiasm of the New Zealander for sport,” Mr Davies said. “We might finish with the richest and best-attended Games in history. One of the other records we might achieve is the number of times we fill the main stadium.”

Cash sales on Friday totalled $28,000, the highest figure since counter sales of tickets began on November 1. Mr Davies said he did not have authoritative figures for the week-end, but estimated gate sales to be between $17,000 and $20,000. The success of Richard Tayler in the 10,000 m on Friday and the gold-medal swims of Mark Treffers and Jaynie Parkhouse on Saturday would continue to provide a “tremendous” impetus to ticket sales, Mr Davies said.