Olympics Draw Millions, But Rarely Sell Out

With the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics less than three weeks away, the French capital is bracing for an onslaught of visitors from all around the world. Along with 10,500 athletes, 20,000 accredited journalists and 45,000 volunteers, millions of spectators will descend on Paris in the coming weeks to watch the 329 events at 35 venues located in Paris, across the country and, with Tahiti’s iconic Teahupo’o wave, even overseas.

As our chart shows, Paris 2024 is on track to be historic in terms of paying spectators. With roughly 9 million of the available 10 million tickets sold as of April 2024, the Paris Olympics have already exceeded the previous record of 8.3 million tickets sold for Atlanta 1996. Given the expected record-breaking attendance, Paris 2024 will be in stark contrast to Tokyo 2020, which was postponed to 2021 and held behind closed doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It remains to be seen whether Paris 2024 can achieve something that neither Rio, nor London or Beijing have managed: sell out all available tickets. With 97 percent of all available tickets sold, London 2012 came closest to selling out in the past four decades, while Athens 2004 struggled most to fill the venues with just 71 percent of tickets sold.