Tony Estanguet, boss of the 2024 Olympics, in discussion with Jean-Michel Blanquer during the 6th edition of Olympic and Paralympic Week, February 2, 2021. – ISA HARSIN / SIPA
While the Tokyo Olympics will be held without foreign spectators, the president of the organizing committee for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, Tony Estanguet, told senators on Wednesday that the organizers were looking at “different models” concerning the same ticketing. if he is still “too early” to “stop” one.
Asked in the Senate about the organization of the 2024 Olympics, while those in Tokyo must be held this summer in drastic health security conditions, Tony Estanguet was reassuring: “the project is very ambitious, despite the context we continue to carry this ambition ”.
Maybe fewer spectators, but less expense
However, a little more than three years from the event, he did not hide the fact that the Paris 2024 organizing committee was working on several scenarios regarding ticketing, which constitutes a third of revenue, alongside sponsors and a contribution from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
At the ticket office, “we started to look at the consequences” of the measures taken in Tokyo. “It is obviously too early for Paris 2024 to stop a model on the ticketing program”. But, he added, “what is interesting in spite of everything is that when we reduce the number of spectators, in front of us we reduce a certain number of expenses, the expenses related to security, to catering, transportation… “.
“There is a risk map on which we are working with our audit committee,” he said. “Probably, as in Tokyo, we will move forward in the coming months and years on different models, depending on the context,” he detailed. “For now, we have started with an occupancy rate of 85%,” he recalled.
“No warning signal”
Asked by senators on the impact of the crisis, Tony Estanguet recalled that a first round of savings was made at the end of 2020 (300 million euros). The budget of the organizing committee was readjusted in December to 3.9 billion euros.
Projects still in question
On the part of the sponsors, expected around 1.1 billion euros, Tony Estanguet assured that there was “no warning signal”. “We have secured 53% of the goal at the end of 2020,” he said. “Our goal is to secure two-thirds of income by the end of 2021,” he added. A provisional report from the Court of Auditors that leaked to the press in the fall of 2020 was concerned about additional costs. “We are still waiting for the final report, it could arrive in the next few weeks,” he said.
Also auditioned, the general manager of the Solideo (delivery company of Olympic works), Nicolas Ferrand, responsible for building the permanent works, reaffirmed that they had “time” and “could absorb contingencies”. “The financial envelopes that we have foreseen should be sufficient, because we do not need to speed up the work,” he said. The Solideo has a public money envelope of 1.4 billion euros (out of 3.2 billion).
Among the subjects being considered, because the major projects are launched in 2021, Nicolas Ferrand cited: “the last kilometer to the sites”, “the place of the bicycle for spectators” as well as a “debate to know if the ‘we push the hydrogen’. Asked about the issue of public transport, while several sites – which do not depend on Solideo – promised for the Olympics do not seem to be ready on time, he said that on “line 16 we are worried about going to Bourget, but I have no more elements ”. “Line 14, on the Pleyel to Orly service, we should get there”.
On the occasion of this hearing, the president of the Culture and Education commission, Laurent Lafon (Centrist Union), announced the creation of an information mission on the Paris Games.