Games sales $7385

Press, 15 October 1976, Page 4

Games sales $7385

In the first two weeks and a half of sales, tickets to the value of $7385 have been purchased for the New Zealand Games in January. Track and field is easily the most popular sport, accounting for $4300 worth of sales. Gymnastics ($1261) is the only other sport into four figures. The response to date was described as encouraging by the tickets chairman (Mr J. E. Davies) in a report to a meeting last evening of the organising committee. Mr Davies noted that experience, both from the first New Zealand Games last year and the Commonwealth Games in 1974, showed that the overwhelming bulk of tickets were sold in the last five weeks. However, the chairman (Mr M. F. Hunter) said that if he had a message for the people of Christchurch it would be to get their tickets early. He said they would then be sure of getting the seats they wanted for the sports they wanted and also avoid having to queue later. The meeting was clearly very conscious of the fact that until the names of top competitors can be coupled tc events, ticket sales and the promotion of the Games throughout the country will be restricted. To this end, the

executive director (Mr A W Barrett) was asked to take whatever steps possible tc secure the names of prominent overseas competitors who will be coming. Earlier, Mr Barrett gave a summary of the replies to date and the only major country whose acceptance is keenly awaited is Russia. However, he said the indications were that Russia would send a team to cover the four sports—track and field, swimming. weight-lifting, and gymnastics—it had been invited to contest. Mr Hunter said that there were definitely enough favourable replies to hold the Games and he estimated that the total occupancy of the Games village at Ham would be about 500.

Mr H. T. Dean, the village chairman, reported that negotiations had been completed with the university authorities for the use of Ham and the charge would be $l6 per athlete per day. The committee was told by Mr Hunter that the Bank di New Zealand had agreed to act as a major sponsor and had already contributed $lO,OOO towards running costs. Another major sponsor, he said, would be Air New Zealand. However, Mr Hunter reported that “not unexpectedly” no easy agreement had been made for television rights. There was quite a difference, he said, between what the committee thought the rights were worth and what the television authorities had offered. “We cannot afford to overlook the effect that television has on ticket sales and the coverage is probably better now that so many people have colour sets. Still it is unthinkable that there should be no television coverage and we will just have to negotiate further,” he said.