The "FIFA fever" that has hit Vancouver "hasn't translated into ticket sales, at least in the early qualifying rounds," according to Cheryl Chan of the Vancouver PROVINCE. Organizers said that "over 20,000 tickets were sold for Wednesday’s games, well short of BC Place’s capacity of 50,000, even though tickets start at a cheap" C$28.50 in the upper zones and are a "still-reasonable" C$96.50 for prime seats. An ample number of seats "are still available for a second Group C doubleheader on June 12." Tickets for the final on July 5 "are sold out, while tickets to the June 16 match between the U.S. and Nigeria are almost sold out, at more than 45,000" (Vancouver PROVINCE, 6/9). GLOBAL NEWS' Jon Azpiri noted the crowd for the first match at BC Place yesterday "was sparse but colourful," with Ecuador fans "wearing canary yellow, Japanese fans wearing Samurai Blue, Swiss fans clad in red and white and Cameroon fans sporting yellow and green" (GLOBALNEWS.ca, 6/8). Meanwhile, CTV NEWS reported today's opening game at Moncton Stadium in New Brunswick between England and France "is not sold out, but organizers are hoping walk up ticket sales will fill the remaining seats." Moncton Stadium GM Stephane Delisle said, "The update on the venue capacity is, we're currently at 13,000 plus seats roughly and currently, as of yesterday, we're at 80 per cent capacity, so roughly 10,500” (CTVNEWS.ca, 6/8).
