Buying Olympic tickets: LA 2028 vs. Cortina 1956 (plus pro tips)
by Jill Jaracz
Are you one of the more than 5 million people who signed up for the LA 2028 Olympics ticket draw? The first ticket lottery is underway—maybe you’re waiting in the queue right now!
We’ll have more tips on LA 2028 tickets in a minute, but this week on the podcast we’ve got another Games History episode. All year long, you, the listeners, asked us to look back in time to Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956, the first time Cortina hosted the Winter Olympics.
If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, be sure to put it in your podcast queue to hear the fantastic story of the torch relay and Opening Ceremony. The torch relay has a surprising parallel that we experienced during our time at Milano Cortina 2026, and the Opening Ceremony featured a major gaffe that almost put out the Olympic flame.
The Dinosaur Age of Olympic ticket-buying
If you’re planning to go to the Games today, the ticket-buying process is all digital. But what was it like to buy tickets before computers and ticket resellers? The Official Report for Cortina 1956 goes into great detail about the paper and printing process used for printing the 152 different types of tickets for these Games. In case you’re wondering, the ticket paper was hand-made by Cartiera Miliani de Fabriano and the Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato in Rome—the state mint—printed the tickets, using both typographical and lithographic processes.
Cortina 1956’s three-tiered ticket system
Cortina 1956 had three types of tickets: Individual, invitation, and season. Season tickets? Yes, you could buy tickets for every event within a sport! That said, not a ton of the total ticket inventory was reserved for season tickets, so die-hard fans had to act quickly to get them.
Buying tickets was another process, given the paper-based systems of the day. Cortina 1956 had a three-tiered sales system. Cortina 1956 organizers sent out a big brochure and schedule to National Olympic Committees and tourist agencies both in and outside of Italy. Want tickets? You filled out a form with the agency, and they sent it in.
The second sale was for the locals, and rather than being first in line like LA 2028 is doing, those most affected by the Games couldn’t buy tickets until December 30, 1955, less than a month before the cauldron was lit.
If you lived in and around Cortina, you could buy your tickets at kiosks in the Piazza della Posta, selected tourism-related offices, and at various Totocalcio offices in the region (if you need a rabbit hole to slide down, dig into Totocalcio and its impact on Italian culture.
Finally, you could take your chances and buy tickets directly at venues.
Special skills of Cortina 1956 ticket takers
Side note: Cortina 1956’s Official Report is full of random fabulous details, including these fun facts about the ticket takers at the Games:
“For the actual checking of the tickets of those going into the venues, 40 youngsters from Venas di Cadore were taken on. Their usual task, during the summer, was to circulate in the various European countries, selling ice-cream! This was an excellent choice, since the fact that they were all from a mountain area meant that they did not suffer from the cold, although they had to do their job in the open, with very low temperatures; and, given their usual employment, they had a fair smattering of foreign languages.”
Today’s Olympic and Paralympic ticket-buying process
Since Paris 2024, paper tickets have gone the way of the dinosaur, unless you purchase special souvenir tickets (more on that below).
Now that tickets are digital, it’s all about the ticket lottery. The basic rules are:
- Register for ticket drops
- There’s a random lottery drawing for who can access a ticket drop
- If you’re selected, you’ll get an email with a time slot link
- At the designated time, go through that link in your email and shop
- You can buy a maximum of 12 tickets with your account
- You must pay with a Visa card
Ticket drops occur at various times in the run-up to the Games, so there are multiple opportunities to get in on tickets. There’s also a resale platform if you can’t get tickets through ticket drops.
LA 2028 Drop 1: The FOMO is real
For many of you, going to LA 2028 is a bucket-list trip, so you want to do it right (and perhaps not break the bank).
The LA Organizing Committee opted to start selling tickets over two years ahead of the Games. This is a little extreme. Sure, it whips up a frenzy among people who want to get tickets, but at the same time, it can be tough to plan for an event over two years in the future.
In an attempt to be a good neighbor, LA 28 first had a lottery and sale just for people local to the LA area and Oklahoma City, where softball and canoe slalom will take place. This sale took place before the first ticket drop for the general public.
What they didn’t mention was that Drop 1 only contained the leftovers from the Locals’ Drop. That meant many who were excited to be selected for the first ticket drop were less than thrilled with the options that were available.
Missed Drop 1? More opportunities are coming!
Like our friend Ken Hanscom says, getting tickets to the Games is a marathon, not a sprint. There will be more ticket drops, and LA 28 will slowly release its inventory over the next couple of years. Future ticket drops will also have a lot of price points available, including those coveted $28 tickets.
Plus, there’s always ticket resellers. LA 2028 is going a different route than Paris and Milano Cortina. Rather than have one resale platform that only allowed sales at face value, LA 28 and will have multiple verified resellers: AXS/Eventim will be the official secondary marketplace. Ticketmaster and Sports Illustrated Tickets will be verified resale platforms.
In future podcasts, we’ll talk about the ticket reselling process, but there are a couple of important elements to keep in mind now:
- Ticket resales won’t start until 2027, so don’t look for tickets on the resale market yet.
- If you buy resale tickets on other platforms, there’s no guarantee that those tickets will be legit.
If you haven’t registered for ticket lotteries, sign up for LA 28 emails to get more information on future ticket drops.
Olympic tickets still out of reach? Consider getting tickets for the Paralympics, which will give you more bang for your buck. Those will go on sale in 2027.
Purchasing souvenir tickets
When you buy your tickets, you’ll also have the option of purchasing a paper souvenir ticket, which will be mailed to you after the Games. Paris 2024 organizers printed your name on the ticket—a nice touch!
Souvenir tickets are not automatically included with your order, so if you’re interested, add them to your cart when you buy your tickets.
For Milano Cortina 2026, a souvenir ticket set you back €2.99, plus €12.99 for delivery. LA 2028 is charging $18 per souvenir ticket. That may seem like sticker shock, but according to listeners who have already ordered souvenir tickets, there’s no delivery fee. That makes them about the same price as other Games—sweet!
Are you going to LA 2028? Let us know! We’d love to hear from our readers and listeners who we’ll see at the Games!
Know someone who’s planning to go to LA 2028? Share this newsletter with them so they can have even more fun on their Olympic and/or Paralympic adventure!