No safe place to stand, watch at Cypress Mountain
(AP) — The roughly 20,000 folks who bought tickets to stand and watch the remaining events on Cypress Mountain are out of luck.
Vancouver Olympics officials announced Tuesday that wet, warm weather washed away almost a foot of snow in the general-admission, standing-room area, leaving it too dangerous to stand, and there's not enough snow to build it back up. So they're shutting down the viewing area and refunding the $48 to $62 tickets sold for the snowboarding halfpipe, ski cross and snowboard parallel giant slalom.
The announcement wasn't much of a surprise. The same thing already had been done for the 8,000 tickets sold for snowboardcross events held Monday and Tuesday.
All told, the 28,000 tickets to be refunded will cost organizers around $1.44 million, which is a negligible portion of their $249 million ticketing revenue.
"Our senior management and venue team have spent significant time on site to try and find a way to accommodate spectators in the standing room areas for the events," said Caley Denton, vice president of ticketing and consumer marketing for Vancouver Olympics organizer. "We've exhausted all avenues, but it just wasn't possible to make the area safe for spectators."
