Entrance Tickets-Admission Prices
In working out a system of entrance tickets and admission prices we enjoyed the advantage of some preliminary work in this field as well as a detailed report of the Los Angeles Games. Our first plans concerned the establishment of seating arrangements and price categories. Our decision to begin this task at an early date proved to be judicious, because it involved more difficulties than we had foreseen and our problems mounted rapidly when active work began. Our efforts were motivated by the fundamental principle of affording sporting enthusiasts throughout the world
the possibility of attending the Games by announcing all the conditions at such an early date that plans could be made and money saved towards the trip. This fact was also taken into consideration in the fixing of prices and categories.
We were unfortunately not able to utilize the extremely simple system of the Americans, namely, establishing a uniform price for the entire Olympic Stadium and giving the best seats to the first subscribers. In Los Angeles the price varied only for the different events, the Marathon Day, for example, being more expensive than an ordinary week day in the Olympic Stadium. For social reasons we did not believe it feasible to adopt this system for a European Festival. We wished to arrange our prices so that the average person could afford to buy a seat or even a season ticket for the Olympic Stadium, but naturally assumed that the more affluent visitors would expect to pay more. We realized that the total income would be considerably below the possible maximum as a result of this system, and, in fact, even set the price of the expensive tickets considerably lower than was necessary from the point of view of sales. Through the firm establishment of all prices we also wished to announce to the world that the Olympic Games were not a commercial enterprise but a festival in which the spectators play an important role, and the privilege of participation should not be confined to those able to pay the highest price. We did not intend that anyone in Germany or abroad should be able to say that the high price of admission prevented him from being present at the Games. Moreover, we did not wish to create difficulties for visitors from countries whose currency was low in its exchange value since they were just as important and their presence was as vital to the success of the Festival as that of guests from more prosperous nations. Another factor of importance was the ensuring of record crowds at the Olympic Stadium and other centres of competition for every event. This is essential for lending the proper festive atmosphere to Olympic contests and can be attained only if true sporting enthusiasts are enabled to attend them and not merely wealthy visitors who, without being especially interested from a sporting point of view, buy tickets to ensure the possibility of being present should the competition chance to excite their interest. We had naturally to contend with the opposite possibility, namely, that if the price were set too low we should be besieged with more applications than we could fulfil, but this appeared to be the lesser of the two evils. Moreover, when these plans were made in the summer of 1934 the future was still uncertain, and we could not even estimate the number of German visitors we should have to contend with, not to speak of foreigners.