MHF expects ticket sales to pick up soon

25/12/2001

THE countdown to the 2002 Kuala Lumpur World Cup reads 62 days, but local
ticket sales have been anything but encouraging.
There has been numerous enquiries from the local fans but hardly any
made bookings to watch 16 of the world's best battle for the coveted
trophy.
"Yes, ticket sales has been very slow but we expect sales to pick up
after the festival season ends. The World Cup came back to Malaysia after
27 years and I am sure hockey fans in the country will not want to miss
out on this golden opportunity to watch top grade hockey at their own
backyard," said Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) secretary S. Satgunam
yesterday.
Axcess tickets, the company entrusted to sell the World Cup tickets,
were unwilling to disclose the total sales conducted after two months, but
a source in the company said the situation was bad.
"I fail to understand why the Malaysian public is still holding back
although the World Cup is only two months away.
"Normally, an event of this magnitute would have been almost sold out by
now," said the source.
He said the overseas bookings have been good with Holland and Hong Kong
making group enquiries.
"We have had more enquiries from overseas fans than Malaysians
eventhough we gave a 40 per cent discount on bookings for local fans
untill the end of December," he said.
Seven days more and the offer will no longer be valid, but still, it
looks like the Malaysian public is adopting a wait-and-see atitude before
making a commitment.
The cheapest ticket to watch one match in the KL World Cup is RM25
(behind both the goalposts) but for a family of four, it will mean RM100
to watch one match.
But the poor response to watch hockey is nothing new as even during the
Azlan Shah Cup in August, where six of the top seven teams in the world
were down in Malaysia, the stands of the National Hockey Stadium were
empty for most of the matches, including the exciting final between
Germany and South Korea.
The ticket prices for the Champions Challenge on Dec 7-15 at the
National Hockey Stadium in Kuala Lumpur were set at RM3 and RM5 to draw in
the crowd, but only a handful of fans saw most of the preliminary matches
and the final between India and South Africa saw only about 5,000 fans.
The MHF failed to make any money out of gate collections for the
Challenge so they are hiking the ticket prices for the Six-Nation on Jan
18-26 at the National Hockey Stadium to RM5 and RM10.
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan and World Cup
champions Holland will play in the Six-Nation to warm-up for the World Cup
and forking out RM5 to watch the top teams play is not too much to ask
from the local fans.
But if they still choose to keep away from the stadium during the Six-
Nation, the prospect of having capacity crowds during the World Cup is
surely a doomed one.
jugjet@nstp.com.my
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