{"id":257738,"date":"2026-04-08T15:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/257738\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T15:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:33:14","slug":"readers-share-their-horror-stories-of-trying-to-purchase-la28-tickets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/257738\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers share their horror stories of trying to purchase LA28 tickets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To the editor: LA28 promised locals priority access to Olympic tickets through an elaborate presale process \u2014 YouTube tutorials, event codes, purchase windows (\u201cYou could pay more than $5,000 for a single ticket to the 2028 L.A. Olympics,\u201d<\/a> April 4). We registered. We studied. We showed up.<\/p>\n

We found empty shelves.<\/p>\n

Not limited availability. Zero \u2014 unless you wanted to drop $1,600 on a single baseball ticket at Dodger Stadium. The Rose Bowl holds nearly 90,000 people and there isn\u2019t a single ticket available for the men\u2019s football final. Where did those tickets go? Corporate hospitality packages and sponsor allotments are carved out before any local resident sees a purchase screen.<\/p>\n

And the pricing? Finals sessions run into the thousands \u2014 before a 24% service fee that isn\u2019t adequately disclosed before you get to checkout.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not asking for a handout \u2014 just a fair shot at a ticket in my own city.<\/p>\n

Call it what it is: a rich person\u2019s event with a working-class facade.<\/p>\n

David Ber\u00f3n, Los Angeles<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

To the editor: Participating in Monday\u2019s \u201clocal draw\u201d for tickets to the 2028 L.A. Olympics was an exercise in frustration. The ticketing system worked (or seemed to), but the problem was that every ticket under $400 or $300 appears to have been sold already.<\/p>\n

I can understand high prices for marquee events, such as the last day of track and field, or sellouts for gymnastics, but why are there absolutely no tickets available at any price for any event in rowing, for example? Strange.<\/p>\n

Most galling was the 24% \u201cservice fee\u201d charged per digital ticket. It made me wonder what services they are offering in addition to the ticket. The pricing smacks of Ticketmaster\u2019s shenanigans for popular events.<\/p>\n

I feel this ticket draw is rife with opportunities for an enterprising journalist to sniff out some irregularities.<\/p>\n

Charlotte Wolter, Santa Monica<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

To the editor: My family assisted with the 1984 Olympics. So, needless to say, I was very happy when entering the lottery to purchase early tickets. I received my email: \u201cCongratulations Eva! You\u2019ve been assigned a time slot to purchase LA28 Olympic tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the time came, I opened my time slot. Awhile later, the frustration set in. For most events, only the expensive tickets (for me, and probably others) showed up. The cheaper and more affordable ones (for me and probably others) said \u201ccurrently unavailable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some events were completely unavailable at this time. Very disappointing.<\/p>\n

We will definitely attend the Olympics, but we will wait for the affordable tickets to become available.<\/p>\n

Eva Kalpins, West Covina<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: LA28 promised locals priority access to Olympic tickets through an elaborate presale process \u2014 YouTube…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[113934,2072,113931,80707,29227,18433,48,52,51,113932,972,47,50,49,63,8548,87459,113935,113933,211,53905],"class_list":{"0":"post-257738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-early-la28-ticket","9":"tag-editor","10":"tag-event-code","11":"tag-frustration","12":"tag-high-price","13":"tag-l-a-olympics","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-headlines","16":"tag-la-news","17":"tag-la28-ticket","18":"tag-local","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","21":"tag-los-angeles-news","22":"tag-los-angeles-times","23":"tag-pricing","24":"tag-service-fee","25":"tag-shenanigan","26":"tag-single-ticket","27":"tag-ticket","28":"tag-time-slot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}