IPL tickets go online, full house for opener

The tickets for the second season of the IPL has been released on the Internet. Fans can avail tickets at the official website www.computicket.com.

The tickets for the double-header in Cape Town on April 18 are priced between 50 Rands for students to 200/150 Rands for the grand stands and are inclusive of the opening ceremony. Kingsmead in Durban hosts 16 games, the most for a single venue, and the tickets are priced between 25 Rands for students to 150 Rands for the grand stands.

The organisers have focused on making the tickets affordable, in order to attract youngsters to the event.

The prices are relatively cheaper in the smaller venues like East London, Port Elizabeth, Kimberley and Bloemfontein, ranging between 10 Rands and 75 Rands.

"We had promised our fans in the Rainbow Nation of a non-stop cricket carnival and the attractive ticket pricing," Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, said. "I think should be a huge impetus for fans to come and see some of the best cricketing talent in the world, display their prowess on the field."

Meanwhile the IPL in South Africa has got the best possible start as tickets for the opening day extravaganza have been sold out within two hours.

IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi told CNN-IBN that the unprecedented rush for tickets will result in a full house at Newlands, Cape Town on April 18.

"We are expecting a full house in Cape Town," Modi told CNN-IBN on Friday. "From all the indications we had about slow sales and that it would take a few weeks to get the sales up, I'm happy to report that we went on radio to break the campaign with the sale starting this morning and the tickets were sold out within two hours."

Modi said the IPL has a good opportunity to build a global fan base with the second edition in South Africa.

"I think the whole idea is of displaying the flavour of India all throughout the tournament," he said. "We have a lot of entertainment and great cricket around, and the way we are selling it to the people of South Africa, they should come and embrace the teams. It's a part of their life like you would support any other football team and make the teams known all across the world. We want to make sure that the stadiums are full and that's our only objective right now, which is to build a fan base."

Modi added that people from around the world have already signed up for the event. "We have had a good response. Kingfisher Airlines started its flights to Cape Town and there are some other airlines who are bringing in packages. We have had a few thousand tickets sold to Indian fans. In reality, we have had some 600-700 confirmed bookings, with a few hundred coming out of England itself. About 400 bookings have been confirmed from the Middle East and some people from Australia are also coming in."

No comments:

Post a Comment