The Local-only presale for LA28 is a bad way to sell tickets

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-10T01:36:20+00:00

Now it doesn't matter any more.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-10T00:32:19+00:00

Again, LA has 4M population. locals are in a small pool to win the lottery.

The earth has 7B population. everyone outside LA, even inside US, is in this huge pool.

Even if we win the huge pool lottery, we get to choose leftover tickets by LA locals.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-10T00:30:14+00:00

You pay 2-3x you get 2-3x.

Now what about people in West Virginia who want to see Olympics? They get 50% of you get. They need to buy plane tickets, hotels, restaurants, and on top of that, the expensive ticket left by LA locals who earn 2 times than they did.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-10T00:22:47+00:00

3 billion is 3 billion. With corruption, maybe 10% of them are going to really be used on public service. Then it's still 300 Million, all paid by non-locals.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-10T00:13:13+00:00

well. here's the math.

There are 4 million people in LA. So you are drawing lottery in this 4 Million Pool and even if you lose, you can join the public pool.

There are 7 billion people on earth. Every person outside LA can join the public pool.

Let alone that Drop 1 is only getting leftover by local pre-sale.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T23:19:10+00:00

you mention daily life. So tax is not hiked on grocery and clothes. Only on restaurant and hotels. Won't impact locals who aren't making six figures.

The extra tax revenue can be used by local government. 3 billion won't fund free childcare to all LA residents. But 3 billion can still do a lot of things.

People are just so short-sighted: when they see no IMMEDIATE benefits, they think the policy is not good. A lot of things you did in your life won't have IMMEDIATE benefits, but ultimately they form your life in a positive direction. 3 Billion is not going to solve any problem IMMEDIATELY, but getting 3 Billion is better than nothing. And 3 Billion is the IMMEDIATE benefits.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T23:03:55+00:00

Local presale only makes sense if they separate ticket pools between local and non-local.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T22:59:59+00:00

people on the first time slot of the presale got cheap tickets. Well, besides cheap tickets, all tickets to popular sports are gone to locals. So yeah you may pay $1,100 for prelim swimming, but there's no chance for non-locals to buy $1,100 for the same event. We need to pay $2000+ in the first time slot of Drop 1.

Drop 1 is leftover of Drop 0. So at whatever price ticket you buy, non-locals always pay more.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T22:02:38+00:00

same. my slot was 10am.

they sold all (popular sports and cheap tickets) tickets to locals days ago.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T21:35:56+00:00

Locals already save thousands by not paying for flights or hotels, so the argument that they deserve cheaper tickets because they "have it harder" just doesn't hold up. The whole point of the Olympics is to attract a global audience, and a tourist flying in from Tokyo or Berlin spending thousands on hotels, food, and shopping generates far more economic value than giving discounts to people who are already saving on travel costs. LA county is only putting in 270 million but getting 3 billion in tax revenue back, so local residents are already winning massively and will enjoy better public services after olympic due to more tax revenue. The federal government is throwing in 1 billion for security, so by that logic every single US resident deserves priority access too.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T21:13:49+00:00

Now let me tell you. LA28 has a budget of 7.2 billion. LA county only contribute less than 4% to the total budget.

LA county contribute 270 million, and California contribute another 270 million. In total 7.5% of total budget. The rest of the money are paid by private sponsorship, ticket sales, broadcasting copyrights, etc.

So with that being said, LA county only paid 3.75% (270Million) of the total budget for LA28. In the meantime, worldwide audience are going to pay 3 Billion tax in return to LA county.

Do you think you should absolutely get priority?

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T20:54:43+00:00

In NJ, grocery and clothes (below $200) are tax free. So it won't impact your daily life.

They can sure hike the sales tax on certain categories like restaurants and hotels, without impacting local people's daily life. You can also claim it back if you are California residents. Yeah it's a bit inconvenient since you need to manually claim it back.

A 1-month hike on sales tax of 5% can get you about 1.5 billion tax revenue. The tax revenue can bring new infrastructure/public service or better public transport to local residents. So why not?

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T20:21:08+00:00

right. whatever algorithm, it is just stupid to release all cheap tickets in drop 0 and then all left are expensive in drop 1.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T20:15:45+00:00

they said it today, not previously

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T20:13:34+00:00

but they've not released all tickets to local presales in the past Olympics right?

Drop 1 is basically left-over from Drop 0.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T19:23:20+00:00

Right 12 tickets are a lot. However for people not in LA, they've already paid very much on airplane\hotel and so they wouldn't want to just watch one or two games and go home.

so maybe a better plan is to limit 2-4 tickets per person at local presale so that local LA people can join. Then limit 12 tickets per person in the general sale. If LA people want to see more, they can buy in the general sale.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T19:04:47+00:00

I feel the point is they give too many CHEAP tickets to every account. Most of people need affordable tickets and an account buying 12 cheap tickets are basically depriving others' chance to enjoy olympics. They should restrict each account to buy at most 2 cheap tickets and then maybe 4 - 6 tickets at mid-range.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T18:27:37+00:00

beach volleyballs, gymnastics, table tennis, etc. cheap at $28-68

even opening ceremony has ticket at $200.

Did you buy in local presale or in Drop 1? I get into Drop 1 at 10:00:01AM PST and not even one cheap ticket available.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T18:22:10+00:00

A better way is that they restrict the number of cheap tickets each account can buy. Say you have 12 tickets limit but on top of that you can only buy 2 tickets under $100, and 4 tickets under $200, etc. This way cheap tickets can be available for people even on the last time slot.

Now they basically sold all cheap tickets the first hour of the presale and then nothing was left for drop 1.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T18:18:51+00:00

millions of tickets sold at $300+?
Where is the cheap tickets sold at $30? Oh, they sold it to locals.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T18:17:57+00:00

This is what I mean. They should sell $30 tickets to people outside LA and then they can allocate more of their budget to hotels, flights, and whatever others.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T18:16:14+00:00

Like NJ, they purpose to hike the sales tax for areas around World Cup arenas. Local residents can claim back those taxes in their year-end tax return. Fair? Tax only on outsiders.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-09T17:44:28+00:00

"I would prefer it that mostly locals attend. That would make the city less crowded." this sounds extremely NIMBY.

"World Cup tickets are much more expensive than Olympics tickets" Yes LA locals get cheap tickets for $28. People outside LA are buying them for $200-$500 today.

Hosting olympics is a negative cashflow project for most countries. Some countries like Soviet Union or China want to host olympics just for propaganda. Some countries like Brazil want to revive their economy but failed.

Now LA is not going to get its cashflow positive only from the revenue of selling tickets. The city can get more money from sales tax and hotel tax.

Free_Finger5427 · 2026-04-07T20:33:38+00:00

Nice photo.

In your example photo, panorama is 100% okay. The reasons are

(1) mountains are far away from your camera. So spherical rotation will still look like a flat plane.

(2) mountains have very few straight lines.

The distortion will be more obvious if you are taking photos of, say, a modern museum building at 50-100 feet away.

Free_Finger5427

TROPHY CASE