Ken Hanscom Interview
We have another exciting interview coming your way today as we speak with Olympic Ticketing Expert Ken Hanscom to learn a little bit more about the Olympic ticketing process and hear about his work he does to help make the Olympic experience better for organisations around the world. Ken tells us just why he is so passionate about the Olympics and how his love for the event came about growing up. He also goes into detail about his first ever Olympic experience back in 2012, and gives some great tips for fans about attending an Olympic Games. Added to this Ken talks about the last 12 months and how challenging it has been for the ticketing side of things as well as talking up Beijing 2022 and how excited the US is ahead of the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. It's a great and informative chat that you won't want to miss!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, An Olympics Podcast coming to you again today for an interview and another exciting interview, a bit more of a behind-the-scenes look at an aspect of the Olympics that we've never really talked about. We're going to talk a little bit more about ticketing for the Olympics. This is a very fascinating part of an Olympic Games, of course. Without tickets, you can't go and watch the event, and without watching the event, you don't have any fans at the Olympics, which I know right now after Tokyo seems almost like the norm. But generally, we have fans at an Olympics. And we're talking today to the COO of Ticket Manager, Ken Hanscom, an American who has been very much involved in ticketing over the Olympics over the last decade or so, and shares his experiences in not only attending the Games, but how ticketing works, his involvement with Ticket Manager, and how he's able to help companies get that Olympic experience. And it's really a fascinating chat here because it sounds like a simple exercise, buying a ticket to an Olympic Games. Cool, I'm just going to go online and buy a ticket, and boom, I'm going to an Olympic Games. Not quite that simple. So Ken goes into the explanation here about how generally it works, how the challenges have been, not only for, of course, Tokyo with no fans, but even the last couple of Olympic Games, including Pyeongchang and Rio, and how things are looking ahead of Beijing, Paris, and even moving forward into Los Angeles. And the interest that has already been shown by Olympic fans out there for Brisbane, we're 11 years away, but there are already people putting their hands up, basically, going, I want tickets for Brisbane in 2032. So it's a great chat here with Ken, learning a little bit more about it, and I know you're going to enjoy every single second of it. So here is our chat with Olympic ticketing expert, Ken Hanscom.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm always excited on Off The Podium to learn about many different aspects around the Olympics. We obviously have a lot of Olympians on the show. We've spoken to some journalists. We've spoken to marketing experts. We learn so many different things about the wonderful world of the Olympics. And I'm very excited to talk to today's guest. He is the COO of Ticket Manager, a very interesting service and company that provides some great services and things out there for people to do with many different sports and has a very big connection to the Olympics as well. He's also renowned as a bit of an Olympic expert, which I always like to have one Olympic expert on this show, not this guy that's talking right now because I pretend to be an expert, but I pretend to be a lot of things right now. So of course, it's always dependent on getting real experts on this show to make me seem smarter than I am sometimes. I'm not sure I'm going with this introduction. Let's introduce a real expert. It's Ken Hanscom. Ken, first of all, welcome to Off The Podium. It's a pleasure to have you on the show today.
KEN HANSCOM: Thanks, Ben. Glad to be here for today.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know where I was going with that introduction. It really kind of starts off well in my head, and then it kind of fades down, and then I don't know what I'm saying. But how do you describe to people what you do? I'm intrigued to kind of hear this, because you're a man of many hats. You kind of are involved in many things. So what's the best way to describe what Ken Hanscom does?
KEN HANSCOM: Well, I think what I do is I work for a company, my company. What we do is we help corporations manage all of their live entertainment. So it can be sporting events, it can be large events, it can be hospitality, it can be doing big things like the Olympic Games. And most of the Fortune 500 use our software and our services to be able to make sure that they're getting the most out of all of those assets. They want to make sure that their top customers are the ones that are being taken to the Olympics, to the Super Bowl, to the FIFA World Cup. And what our software does is partner with whatever CRM, whatever tools or other things they use to manage and run and market their business to help them do that. And so that's what my day-to-day is. I have a background in software and technology, worked into it for a number of years before I moved over here. So lots of startups, lots of mergers and acquisitions, and really moved over about five, six years ago to more of the sports entertainment world because that's where a lot of my passions, including the Olympics, really are at.
BEN WATERWORTH: So where did this passion then for not only sports come from, but mainly the Olympics? Was it just something that you've always had and kind of fell into it through your career, or was this something that you discovered along the way?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, you know, I always think back to the 1984 Olympics, the Los Angeles, and I remember sitting around the TV with my family watching Carl Lewis win four gold medals, watching Mary Lou Retton, you know, watching Team USA, and very early on, and then I swam all the way through high school. Now, I'm not six foot seven, like, you know, some of these guys like Nathan Adrian out there with, you know, some of these great talent in genetics to do that. But, you know, very, very close to that. And my wife also had a similar experience growing up and a similar passion. And, you know, for the longest time together, it's something we wanted to do. And we ended up going to London 2012 on a whim. But we were fortunate enough to kind of scrape our way to do 17 events in 10 days, and that really just ignited, you know, the passion that we had. And, you know, we've invested both, you know, good portions of our time, but also our financial commitments. We both, you know, in the last few years became trustees of the US. Olympic and Paralympic Foundation, among other things, because we want to support, you know, athletes and their goals and their dreams to participate in Olympic games.
BEN WATERWORTH: So when you decide to go to London, I mean, first of all, what's that experience like? And what's that experience like, then, as a fan to try and go to an Olympics to see the amount of events you did? Was it an easy experience? Kind of, was this an experience that led you to, I guess, develop some software to make it an easy experience moving forward for people wanting to go to an Olympics?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, it's a great question, Ben, you know, I think when everyone looks at going to an Olympic state, it seems very daunting, right? You hear how expensive it is, you hear how difficult it is, that there's no tickets available, that you can't do all of these things. And that's kind of what I learned from that experience and why I run and work with some folks on running Facebook groups that help thousands of people go to the Olympics for each cycle, starting with Rio. But for me, it was just learning when tickets got released. And so I would get up at 5 a.m. in the morning, when the US tickets got released, and I would stay up till 1 a.m. midnight when the tickets in London got released. And I would do that every single night until I got the event. So I was committed to doing that. So it definitely was an investment. And what I learned from over that time, and also I have a technology background, is I learned that I knew a lot more about, you know, getting access to tickets, events, and even lodging than a lot of people did. And so as I learned that, and then I happened to join this company that I also wanted to really kind of help, you know, kind of further what I did in the space, I just started writing. I started talking on Twitter, and very quickly became one of the people that people respect and come to when it comes to, whether it's finding tickets, getting the latest information, now we're dealing with refund situations. But as we look, whether it's towards Beijing, towards Paris, there's lots of different groups. I think the Paris group is already a thousand people who now are still three years in advance, people already planning to go to Paris. And we have groups all the way up to, I think, Brisbane now, 2032, that are already forming.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, well, it's good to see that that passion is there all the way through now, that Brisbane is obviously being announced. I remember as a kid in the lead up to Sydney, that when the tickets got announced, you had to buy the newspaper and then you got a lift out sort of magazine where it was like, okay, these are the sports, these are the days, tick a box and then you posted it in and I think it was a ballot. And then basically, if you were lucky enough to get in, then you got another letter saying, cool, your name has been drawn, you're going to the swimming or something along those lines. I can imagine that ticketing for An Olympics has moved on a little bit more than that 20 odd years later. So it was when you were getting up sort of at those times to try and get tickets for London, was it sort of like a ballot thing? Do certain countries get given an allocated amount? How does it generally work?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, it's interesting. As much as you might think it's changed over the last 20 years or so, it really hasn't changed very much. But it will and it's going to change, I think over the next four years and we'll see that. So I'll talk a little bit about that as well. But generally, there are three phases to the Olympic ticketing cycle. Roughly somewhere around 18 months in advance of an Olympic Games, whether it's summer or winter, there will be a ballot or a lottery process. And so usually what the organising committee will do, is they will work with the IOC and others to say, hey, allocations are going to be here, right? Roughly 70 percent of all tickets go to the host nation. But then 10 percent goes to sponsors, right? And those numbers can be kind of fudged around. They move back and forth depending on use, but these are general numbers. But then 20 percent get distributed internationally. So me, as someone in the US, I can only buy from the US Olympic Committee and through their agent, which happens to be Coastport. So whatever allocation the US gets, at least in this first phase, I have an opportunity to apply for. And based on that, it's a lottery process. So that's kind of the first phase. Then we get to around a year ago, maybe six months ago, and we start opening and kind of, what happens is these get released out in phases. Usually, and like I said, there's three phases. There's this initial lottery period. There's kind of a open sales period where it's just free for all. As they get loaded, we all hope to get in, and maybe there's a waiting room. But it's really how quick you can click, and if you can click quicker than other people, faster than other people, you can get to them in the last phase, is just slowly over time as different committees can't use them, they just slowly get distributed out. So those are kind of the three phases, I think, that we've experienced up through Tokyo. If and when they do tickets for Beijing, we might see a similar, although there is speculation that Beijing is all going to be direct ticketing at this point. Who knows how that will be? And I think we're really going to see it significantly change with Paris 2024 and the recent deal that the IOC signed with On Location Experiences for all of the premium kind of inventory and all the packages.
BEN WATERWORTH: So when you say it looks as though Beijing might have direct ticketing, is that more of a case if you can just walk up to a box office and buy tickets? Is that what that means, or is it something a little bit different?
KEN HANSCOM: Or you potentially go to the Beijing site. And so, for example, with both Rio and Pyeongchang about 90 days before it started, basically, you could actually then, instead of going through your local, what they call authorized reseller in the US, I think in Australia is Coast Sport, you would actually be able to go directly to the Beijing 2282 website. In these cases, it was Rio 2016, Pyeongchang 2018, and you could buy directly. One of the advantages of that is that you were able to see the actual seats and rows. When you buy through agents, what you usually buy is a category of tickets. And so you really don't know where you're going to be sitting. You could be sitting in the very best of best of that category, or maybe the worst of that category. But when you generally go direct, what you end up finding is that you can actually pick the actual seats and the rows that you want to sit in.
BEN WATERWORTH: Because I guess nowadays, people are so used to that experience, aren't they, buying tickets online? I mean, we often, depending on what you're buying tickets to, you can almost have that sort of fan view, can't you? Where you actually are seeing, this is what you're seeing from your seat. So I guess a lot of fans are almost used to that now, aren't they?
KEN HANSCOM: I think it's general expectation. I think we just haven't seen it yet really hit FIFA and hit the Olympics yet in terms of their ticketing, just because I think there's a lot of different things in play internationally as all these tickets are moving around. Oftentimes, if you're selling 12 to 18 months in advance, you may not know the official venue capacity because some of these venues are still being constructed and maybe a couple of rows disappear from here or there. And so I think that's oftentimes why we don't see that same level of kind of, hey, a view from your seat that you might see with general events, whether it's football, soccer, baseball, cricket, any of the other sorts of sports out there.
BEN WATERWORTH: When you and your wife went to London and you jam-packed all those events into such a short period of time, I mean, what did you see? What were the highlights?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, you know, I think any planning starts with an itinerary. And I think what first-time Olympic visitors or, you know, fans often do is they pack too many events into a single day and don't account for the time to time, you know, to travel between all the various sites. And I think, you know, what we try to do is we try to do roughly two events per day. And as part of that, you know, we did two, three events in one day, and that was pretty grueling to be able to do that. But we saw everything from Michael Phelps' kind of first-class swim, the Team USA basketball, the closing ceremony. You know, we saw the four by one hundred, you know, track athletics race with both, you know, really kind of actually, I think, cruising around Team USA, to kind of finish that off and win a gold medal there. So we kind of just try to take in as much as we could during that kind of second week of the Olympics. Saw the gold medal soccer game for women's. So saw US play Japan and that. So really what we were doing is we're trying to get a taste of a lot of different events. We saw some things that we had never experienced before. We'd never gone to a field hockey game. We'd never seen handball played in person. So I think that's something as we continue to go is every single Olympics, what we try to do is see the new sports that come out. And even if we're not a fan of that sport, just because it's new and sometimes we don't know how long that sport will be around, what we do is we really kind of try to see everything that that's new as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which is fantastic on so many levels. I mean, obviously, being American and getting to see America win so many medals, it's always kind of a positive. But also, yes, some of these sports like, I mean, getting to see handball would be absolutely incredible. That's on my bucket list of going to an Olympics one day to see handball live. That sport's crazy.
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, it's absolutely crazy. And, you know, you watch teams that are the best in the world, and heck, even the US Olympic was in that tournament. So we see France, you know, France, I think, at the time, was one of the better teams, had the opportunity to see them in pool play, which was fantastic.
BEN WATERWORTH: What did you think of field hockey, Ken? I mean, I come from a country, that was my sport growing up. Obviously, it's a bit more prominent here, but I realise in your part of the world, not. I mean, a bit different to ice hockey, clearly, but did you enjoy it?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. So I think part of it was learning the rules. And so, you know, whether you're looking at something like lacrosse or ice hockey or some of the different things. I think for us, you know, first half of the game, because we didn't have time to read up on it, was actually saying, hey, well, what does that kind of call there? And, you know, why are they restarting with? I don't know if it's called a face off or not in field hockey, but you know what I'm saying.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think they should call it a face off though. It makes it sound more exciting, really, doesn't it? But yeah, it's I mean, when I was living in Canada, it was interesting because obviously, yeah, you mentioned the word hockey there. They think you're thinking completely different. But it's interesting when you're in certain countries and you talk about sports and say maybe it's a predominantly male or female sport. It was a predominantly female sport in Canada. I don't know if it's the same in the US. So I'd mentioned I played field hockey, and they'd look at me like, but that's a women's sport. Not in Australia. It's not we've got the best team in the world in the men's. So it's not quite that way. So after your experiences then, and then leading into Rio, was this taking your expertise in the software industry, was this kind of what led you into getting involved into what you are today?
KEN HANSCOM: It didn't directly. I think it was more of, you know, my wife and I have had general passion for sports, right? We've had Laker season tickets, sports and theatre, go to a lot of concerts. And so it was just more of a general approach to, hey, I was in software. I'd like to be in an industry that more aligns with the things that my wife and I like to do. The Olympics happened to be something when I was recruited for the organization that it was able to just spend even more time kind of focusing on that, hoping companies have a better experience with their Olympic programs and really making sure they were getting the most out of the sponsorship dollars. They spend a lot of them to take their customers. Again, whether it's Olympics or FIFA World Cup or the Rugby World Cup or the Super Bowl, companies spend a lot of money on sponsorships really because it works. It's really about sharing events with other people. Some of the best friends I have now, I met either at London or Rio. We see each other outside the games. And so you start making all those connection points, whether it's personally but also in business.
BEN WATERWORTH: So if I'm a boss of a company and I want to go to the Olympics, either with tickets, sponsoring all that kind of stuff, and I contact you, I'm like, Ken, help me get here. What do you do for me? How do you make that happen?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, so it's interesting. So we don't get involved generally at that point. Generally, they're going to work directly with a US Olympic Committee or the IOC, right, if they're part of the top program or the Olympic program, or whether they're a Team USA sponsor. Once they've kind of put together some of those kind of key sponsorships and know they're going to be participating, what we'll do is we'll help them make sure that they're able to basically track all the assets, and then what is the return on investment associated with those assets? For example, are you taking your best customers to opening ceremony? Are you taking your best customers to the gold medal basketball game? Because you'll get those assets directly from either the US. Olympic Committee, one of the international federations, one of the NGBs, or even the IOC, depending on what level of sponsorship and program. What we're going to do is, and if you're running any offsite hospitality, or you're doing guest management or even credentialing, those are pieces we'll come in and help you guys facilitate those capabilities to make sure all those programs run very smoothly for you.
BEN WATERWORTH: And is that where you're sort of getting these requests a lot? You're kind of dealing with these partners and that to really, I guess, knuckle down what they are after with everything that you were just saying there.
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, and if you think about it, if you are at Wells Fargo or Federal Express or any of these larger companies, you know, Dow Chemical, Panasonic, you're not just doing Olympics, right? You have a multinational, a multi-sport type portfolio that oftentimes includes eight or nine different sports. And what we do is we help you manage that across every single list. We have customers that have hundreds of thousands of tickets a year for various events. And what we really help them do is that can be a lot of noise. One or two people can't just manage all of those assets. And what we do is we help them digitally do all of that to make it easy and simple for them to track and make sure they're getting the most out of those investments that they're making.
BEN WATERWORTH: How popular are the Olympics in general when it comes to those events that people are interested in? Do the Olympics still kind of have that high regard as they are the Olympics? So people are always kind of wanting to be involved in them.
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, I think Olympics, I think FIFA World Cup, NFL football, Premier League, Champions League, there's probably five or six top flight kind of sports and tournaments out there that are probably the most popular, and the Olympics continue to be there. Now, we're obviously going through a time where we had a couple of the challenging Olympics, Rio 2016, there was Zika, Pyeongchang 2018, the attendance wasn't real high. And of course, everyone was going all in on Tokyo, and we know how that's wound up with, none of us that were planning to go as fans really having the opportunity to do that. So I think a lot of eyes are, there's some eyes on Beijing, but there's still a lot of uncertainty there, but all eyes are really on Paris 2024. And I think we're going to continue to see corporations, sponsors spend a lot of money to be able to bring fans, bring their customers, bring prospects to those events.
BEN WATERWORTH: You definitely got involved in this at a very interesting time, Ken, with everything that's happened. Like, God, if Paris just goes ahead like normal, no challenges, you're like, God, make something happen here. I'm not used to it being normal and just kind of going ahead without a hitch.
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, it's interesting. Every Olympics seems to have a story that comes up. And again, I think we can look back to the last eight or 10, and we can see some sort of either problem or threat or something that was happening in the world. I just think that's kind of the world we live in. You know, it just happened to be a lot more, I guess, accentuated for Rio and Pyeongchang. And of course, we all know the pandemic we've been living in, you know, the last, I guess, 18 months now at this point and how that impacts what we do. And I think, you know, there's a hope that, you know, Paris becomes, you know, more normal or return to normal by the time we get to that point for Olympic Summer Games.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's actually a very interesting point thinking about this millennium. You think of every Olympics and they've almost had something around it. I'm just trying to think, like, obviously, what Salt Lake was post 9-11, Athens, well, we know the problems around that. Turin, I don't really recall too many around that. Maybe Turin and Vancouver were the only ones that really, I mean, at least from this perspective, didn't really have so much around that, but I'm sure they did have their issues. So I guess, yeah.
KEN HANSCOM: Exactly, it's kind of a handful, like one or two, and some of them had smaller, kind of more, I think industry specific types of concerns. But I think as far as you go back, you'll find them with most Olympics at some point.
BEN WATERWORTH: So you, I'm assuming, then go to Rio, experience that sort of through everything you're doing. What was that experience like then going to the Rio Olympics and Olympics that were memorable and challenging on so many different levels?
KEN HANSCOM: You know, they were in a way that I think every, you know, so many people dropped out. But once you got there, it was really a phenomenal experience. I don't know if we'll ever see an Olympics where tickets to such great events were so accessible. I mean, I joke around that you can walk down the street and pick tickets up off the ground because a lot of people didn't show up. But I mean, we showed up a week before the opening ceremony and we were there all the way through closing ceremony. I think the final count was roughly 35 events we went to. You name it, we saw everything from, you know, I think we went to seven swimming finals. We went to, you know, Team USA's, gymnastics, both the all around as well as the individual events. So I mean, we saw everything we could possibly want to see. So I say that was kind of a, for people who went, it often was a trip of their dreams and relatively inexpensive. I mean, you could do Rio very simply on a budget. I know people who spent less than $3,000 on a trip, you know, for there. And of course, you know, Olympics can be as expensive as you want. There are people who spend $100,000 or more on their trip to Olympics. There's people that can do it for under $3,000 or $4,000. So you don't have to be wealthy necessarily, you know, to be able to go and enjoy the events. You can do it on a very, you know, I would say decent budget.
BEN WATERWORTH: When it came to the winters, Pyeongchang, what was, I mean, how can you, I guess, compare winters to a summer? And then I guess also for your role, is that also maybe not as prominent as a summer? I mean, or is there more prominence kind of when you're dealing with clients for a winter that people maybe don't understand?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, it's different. You know, I would say is there's probably only about a 20 to 25% Olympic fan overlap, at least people who travel, because the game is between winter and summer. So now I have friends that only go to summers. I have friends that only go to winters. Now I have friends that go to both. I would say, you know, for me, I grew up in Southern California. I'm a Southern California kid, warm weather my entire life. The first week in Pyeongchang was cold. I mean, it was really cold. The car I was driving around, the temperature never got above zero degrees. And I think I'd never experienced anything like that. Opening ceremony was the coldest I've been in my life. My wife, my wife's not able to go with me to winter games because of her job and things that happened during that time. She asked, why did you take more photos? I was like, I was so cold, I could not take off my gloves to take my iPhone out. And take pictures. You know, I think the winter is such a different experience, I think for a couple of reasons. I think, you know, the events are different. Like when you go to mountains and what you can see and what you can't see, I think you want to look at different events. Say, I either enjoy the kind of the energy and spirit of being there, even if I can't watch as much of it. And then there's other events that, you know, just like speed skating. And just hearing, it reminds me a lot of track cycling, right? Which is you just hear them kind of worrying around the ice. It's like you kind of hear the bikes and you just, you know, it's such a great kind of visceral like experience that you have, not just what you're seeing, but also kind of what you're hearing as well. But I think Pyeongchang was not well attended as well. It was different because it was in a pretty remote area, right? So up in the mountains was pretty remote. The venues were pretty spread out. And then once you got down into Gangnam, where you had more of the kind of indoor events, those were clustered. There was a nice park, and you can go there. I think one of the things that's very different about the Winter Games experience is that, for used to going Summer Games, usually the medal ceremonies are there within the actual event, or shortly thereafter. Maybe it's stacked, you know, morning and evening. You know, what's different with Winter Games is that, every night they go to the park or wherever that may be, and they have that celebration there. And that was a very different experience. Some parts I liked about it, some parts I didn't like about it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Because it's always one of those ones that I'm actually surprised, because it always seems popular, like, you know, kind of just watching it. So I'm always surprised the summers haven't really adopted it. But I guess kind of Winters obviously don't have as many events, so they can kind of obviously do it a little bit easier than the summers do. I mean, is it something that, you know, when you're there, and you're able to go to the Metal Plaza that night, and kind of maybe haven't been able to go and see an event live, but you can then go and celebrate Team USA winning a goal, kind of like it adds a bit more of a fan experience, particularly for those, again, who can't go to as many events as some people obviously can.
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, I think it varies. I think in a situation like Pyeongchang, if you were down from the mountain, right, and you saw the event there, you know, I don't, you know, I think a lot of people are going to rush back up the hill and then have to go through all the security, all the parking, all those things to get in to see that. So I think, you know, in a lot of places, unless you're nearby, and where this particular metal ceremony was, was in a different place. So I think oftentimes, it probably catered to different fans, because I think making that journey, in some cases, can be a little bit challenging, but it does give people who weren't there for the event the opportunity to have a bit of that experience, which may not be available, because they also will allow people in the park to sell tickets that are just for the park, even if an event's not happening that day.
BEN WATERWORTH: Speaking of challenging, obviously, we're in challenging times right now, and the Tokyo Games, the delay, no fans, everything along those lines. I mean, Ken, have you had any sleep over the last 12 months and kind of dealing with what you've had to deal with in your role?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely been a challenging time for live events, right? And then, you know, I think we started in February this year, really. Live events, you know, started really, really coming back, at least here in the US. And I think, you know, one of the challenges that a lot of companies had is just kind of planning and replanting the uncertainty. And as I think we all saw with Tokyo, you know, there was a lot of uncertainty up until about two weeks before Tokyo, I was planning to still go. I still held on to my tickets. I had a way that I could get into the country and potentially do that. But when they cancelled bans, you know, just two weeks. And so, you know, I think at some point when you go through what most of us went through last year, you become a lot more, I don't know, understanding the right word. But you have this experience where you kind of understand you can only plan for what you could plan for. And I think even when some additional ticket sales happened last fall, as we got to winter, I think most of us felt like, hey, the chances are pretty low that anything is really going to happen. I think a lot of us were hopeful. So I'd say I lost less sleep, mainly because, you know, my expectations were set pretty low. I think really what kind of, at least at a fan level, you know, outside of my job and what kind of what I do with a lot of Facebook groups, I think a lot of the uncertainty around refunds and how all those things would transpire is probably what drove a lot of people to have some level of stress, trying to figure out what was going to happen with those.
BEN WATERWORTH: So what actually did or is happening with that process is still sort of ongoing, depends on where you got the tickets from. I mean, kind of, I can imagine that's a very complicated process.
KEN HANSCOM: It's a very complicated process. You know, because of the system today where you do not buy the assets directly from the Olympic, you know, organising committee, what you buy them from is a third party who purchased them at some point from them. And so it varies country by country. Countries like Canada have gotten full refunds, and I think everybody's been paid out. And that happened, you know, some months ago, or at least a few weeks ago, I think the final ones were completed. Other countries, I think US, Australia, there's varying amounts that you get back. Now, if you bought packages, I think, you know, you might lose like up to 25%, including hotels and whatever else is the current stance, as well as you lose 20% or up to 20%, which was the, you know, authorized ticket reseller fee that's generally collected when you purchase a ticket. So I think depending on where you're at, there's been, you know, I think Team GB, they refunded everybody 100%. So it varies by every geography and there's, you know, there's different things happening. So, you know, some places like the US there's a class action lawsuit going on right now around some of this. So you'll see, like for me, who I just found out, what, about two weeks before the Olympic Games, I wasn't going to go. And when they fully got cancelled, I haven't got my refund back. I think the expectation that Coast Board has set is roughly, you know, third quarter of this year. So we'll see, you know, that expectation would mean I would see before the end of September. We'll kind of see what happens with that. So yeah, so there's a lot of frustrations. I think people have moved on from it outside of some of the lawsuits that we see out there.
BEN WATERWORTH: And you're mentioning Beijing, sort of the uncertainties around that. But I mean, what's what's it tracking like now in terms of fans, potential for fans? Is it looking good, things like that? Or is it still just so uncertain that you just you just don't know?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, it's interesting. You try to you try to read the tea leaves around, you know, these kinds of things. And clearly, Beijing is not going to launch a ticket sale program during the Olympics or the Paralympics, because they're not they don't want to take any of the steam away from Tokyo, right? They want the focus to be on the athletes, the focus on the competition and the focus on, you know, the successes, you know, the stories that were seen out of that. So speculation is if we are going to see sales for for fans, we're going to see them sometime, likely being announced in September. So just a few weeks here as the Paralympics run up. You know, other things I've seen, and I think on the corporate side, I don't think there's a whole lot of planning, you know, with my, what I would say is my job portion of the part that I do for fun. You know, the tealies are saying that, you know, eight weeks ago, you could buy a, you could get a five-star hotel in Beijing for less than $300 a night.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow.
KEN HANSCOM: Two weeks ago, those all dried up, and now the cheapest one is close to $1,000. And this is for the, this is for the Olympic period. I was fortunate to get my hotel for the month at those lower prices, right? Because I was looking, I was curious what was happening. I was like, hey, let's take a flyer on this. These are refundable hotel rooms. But, you know, the fact that all that's transpired, what that tells, you know, seems to indicate is that there are, is interest in whatever is happening with these hotel rooms, whether the hotel is blocking them off or they're getting, you know, bought up or whatever it is. There's some activity, you know, happening there. Again, we can't predict what's going to happen with the pandemic, right? I mean, we have a surge currently happening in the United States, different places around the globe are in different places. And so we, you know, you can't be certain on what China is going to do. You know, there's no direct flights into China from the US right now. But there's still a lot of things that have to happen. I think there's some people that are optimistic, that will see fans in some state, whether it is just local or Chinese nationals, you know, that are able to go, people living in China, rather than the question really is, will international fans be allowed to go?
BEN WATERWORTH: Which I can imagine then, even if they turn around and say, cool, yep, ticket sales are going, that it's not a case of people in those groups are going to be rushing to buy them because it's that uncertainty, right? And they don't want to happen what's happening with Tokyo two weeks beforehand. Nope, sorry, no events for you.
KEN HANSCOM: I think that's right. And taking the risk of losing that 25%, I don't think a lot of people want to do that. And I think the other part of it, too, is what is the venue capacity right now? Is it 50%? Is it 75%? Is it 100%? I think a lot of those things will need to get, well, we need to be closer to the actual dates and see what's happening to really determine what's going to happen there.
BEN WATERWORTH: You mentioned your memories of the Olympics harking back to 84 for Los Angeles. Obviously, in seven years' time, we're going back to Los Angeles for 2028. For yourself, as a Californian, pretty exciting, but I guess also in your industry, what's that prospect going to be like? Obviously, looking forward to Paris, but I can imagine that it's a bit of added excitement to know that post-Paris, you got literally a home Olympics.
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah. I think it's going to be a pretty exciting time in the US the next seven years or so. We do have the combined World Cup with North America in 2026, and so that'll be a nice kind of run test. And there is a lot of excitement for LA 2028. A lot of the venues here recently, I think USC or the Coliseum just completed their major upgrade into one of the two homes of the opening ceremony. Rose Bowl recently did a lot of upgrades, and SoFi has been open, but we just had the first football game there with fans about two weeks ago. So I think we're starting to see a lot of the things that have been, they're being promised as part of the great experience of LA 2028. I think there's a lot of excitement for that. Sponsors are already starting to line up. And with any Olympic Games, a lot of what's set in motion is set in motion when the deals are announced. You know, seven, eight years, sometimes four years, right? All of the hospitality companies that are out there, they go in and buy the hotels on behalf of people. They rent out all of these things. So I think a lot of that's already in place. But I think here in the US, there's going to be quite a bit of excitement. You know, we haven't had anything here since Atlanta 1996, and it's going to be 22 years. Is that my math right there? 32 years. 32 years since we've had an Olympic Summer Games in the US, even in North America. So I think it's going to be extremely well attended. I think tickets are going to be hard to come by, but I think there's going to be a lot of excitement, a lot to do around the city.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's definitely one that I've bookmarked as, you know, I've unfortunately never been to an Olympics, but it's definitely one that I always bookmarked. And obviously with Brisbane kind of getting in on too, it kind of adds a few, you know, little exciting sort of prospects there to go to some games, because I can imagine that you remember going to London your first time going to an Olympics, and then I guess it kind of lights a fire that, oh, wow, I can't be into one. When can I go to an Exile? When can I do this? I mean, I've been lucky enough to go to a Commonwealth Games, you know, kind of Olympics Junior. So it's kind of lighting that flame then that all of a sudden people go to one. Let's just keep going to multiple Olympics.
KEN HANSCOM: That's absolutely right. I mean, I've, you know, I saw the Dodgers win the World Series last year. I've been in a lot of college football championships, other, you know, sport championships. And I think for me, you know, the day we landed in London in 2012, we went straight to the swimming venue. And that night, Michael Phelps won what was at the time his last first gold medal, the first time around when he retired. I think it was his 19th at the time. And I can't tell you the experience of watching your country's flag wave or raise the very first time in person. It was interesting when we were on the flight, my wife and our colleague, my wife was just like, one thing I want to see, Kenny, I just want to see that US flag raised at one event here on the first night. You kind of have that great experience. And once you do that, I think maybe other countries that have fantastic, whether it's rugby teams or whether it's soccer teams that more commonly do this. In the US, we have mostly city versus city stuff. There's not a lot of US level stuff. And I think seeing that there for us really kind of hooked us. We're like, man, we want more of this. We want more of this.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a great point you make with that, because I think in Australia, we're a sporting nation, but we obviously, I think, get behind our net. We do definitely have the whole city versus city things, but we're a very regional country. You like a certain sport base and where you live in the country. Whereas when a rugby world cup is on or even recently soccer world cup, we really get behind and that sort of stuff. Whereas for America, yeah, it really is just kind of the Olympics, it does seem which brings you all together kind of for that sort of event. So, yeah, to be there in person, it must be such a unique thing. Because the thing I love about America, among many things I love about America, is just that you guys are going to be playing the national anthem and waving that flag no matter what the event, even before just a regular NFL game. And it's kind of on an international stage, it's even more so than what you guys are doing domestically.
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, it is amazing. And I think we're really starting to grow, I think, as a country, at least in some sport, I think there's going to be a tremendous following for the World Cup, Women's World Cup that's happening in New Zealand and Australia in just a couple of years here. I think we're hopeful that our US men's team will qualify again at some point for the men's World Cup. But outside of those things, in terms of things that happen internationally, we go to something like FIBA, like the basketball tournament, and we're kind of expected to win it, right? So I think there's a little bit less there, but when it comes to Olympic games, I think the interesting thing about the Olympics specifically here in the US is that we are the only privately funded Olympic committee, and most of our athletes make less than $25,000 a year, right? That's what they live on. I think oftentimes, at least for me, when I see an athlete is unexpected in an unexpected sport, whether it's wrestling or whatever it may be, those are some of the stories I enjoy more than Team USA basketball winning gold medal again, right? Because that's kind of expected. I think that's also some of the things that pulls you together. I would say it's like an underdog, but it's somebody who is clearly not making millions of dollars for doing it for the love of sports because they want a challenge, and they are your country person, and you really want to help support them in what they're doing.
BEN WATERWORTH: I remember years ago I was in Colorado Springs, and I did a tour of the US Olympic facility, and it was so fascinating to learn. That was when I learned that it's privately funded. I can't even remember the dollar amount it equated to, to like every gold medal you won. It was amazing, because then I think back to Australia, and it's like, well, we're not privately funded. There's government funding. People complain that we don't get enough, but then it also equates to, well, we're spending a lot of money on not much return, whereas you guys actually spend not as much money and get quite a good return. So it was an interesting model when I learned about that.
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, and I think it's something that, you know, in some ways it's good because the government's not involved with it. I think at least some of us think about it that way. On the other side, though, it means that we all always are looking for people to help fund and help bring the next generation of Olympians forward, at least here in the US.
BEN WATERWORTH: When it comes to people like myself, Ken, who want to go to an Olympics one day, experience as a fan, what advice do you have to people who are thinking about that? Like, one day I want to go to an Olympics. What is the best model for people to start off when it comes to ticketing and things like that to be able to experience an Olympic Games?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah. Well, my first advice is just do it. If you put it off, you're not going to end up doing it. And I think whatever amount of money or budget you're going to spend, I think it'll be well worth your money. I think outside of that, what I would say is there's a few ways. When you start thinking about it, again, you can plan to go four weeks in advance. You can plan to go four years in advance. But I think most people start planning roughly a year to 18 months in advance. Start with a budget. Figure out what it is. Like I said, you can probably do a week in Olympics with five or six events for less than three or four thousand US dollars. And if you do it right, I know people who did Rio on much less than that, close to $1,500 for a week and went to a number of events. And then based on that, figure out what you want to do and see. Do you want to follow a particular team? Do you want to follow a particular sport? Do you just want to get a taste of everything? And then start building out your schedule. The temptation will be to fill it with Olympic sporting events. But one of the things I have to emphasize is that is not the only thing to do. Go to live sites. Meet people from your country, from other countries. Go to the hospitality houses. Most countries have them. Some of them aren't open, some of them aren't. Experience the culture locally. Those are all the other things outside of just sporting itself that I think will contribute to what is a great kind of cultural experience. And you can join Facebook groups like the ones that I help with. Ours are there for every single Olympics. And it's a group of four or five. We might see seven or eight thousand people for Paris. They just work together to help people plan. They help advise when hotels are available. If a hotel block opens up, you'll see it pop up on the group and you can pick up a hotel room. If there's a new sale of tickets out there, they'll announce that and say, hey, a bunch of tickets just went on sale in Canada, and you can go out there and pick those up. So I would say also lean on the backs of people who've been there before because there's a lot of people out there, like myself, that just, you know, outside of work and the business side of things, I just wanted to see more people experience, you know, the joy of an Olympic Games and have that opportunity. And when people stare at this, oh my gosh, I got to think about Paris 2024, we really, you know, what I think about is, hey, make it as simple as possible and just get started.
BEN WATERWORTH: We often, with our guests, we sort of have a series of fun closing questions to, I guess, get to know you a little bit and everything along those lines. Don't know how they will equate to you just because they're sort of more athlete based, but I've got a bit of a fun little thing here, which I thought I would do with you, Ken, because we did this during our Tokyo coverage, because it was a question that I legitimately asked. I wanted to find out, we found out, but I want to test you as an American to see if you know the answers to this. I'm going to ask you, there are five summer sports, and these aren't including the new sports that we just had in Tokyo, that the US have never medaled in, in the Olympics, and one winter sport. Could you name for me either all of these or some of these?
KEN HANSCOM: I am probably going to do terrible on this, so let me think about this. Now, hadn't medaled before or still have not medaled before?
BEN WATERWORTH: Still have not medaled. So, I will say that... Yeah, well, I've sort of, I'm not, this doesn't include, I should say, yeah, the newest sports. So, like, yeah, karate, I'm guessing, would be on that list. I think US medaled in sports climbing didn't use, so I mean, I guess you can kind of tick that off the list.
KEN HANSCOM: And then three on three by three, we didn't in men's, because our men's team didn't make it, but we did in skateboarding, BMX, we did in...
BEN WATERWORTH: Surfing, we did. We did. Yep. So, yeah, this list is pre-Tokyo. So I will say just as a... There's two... So there's one sport here, but two disciplines in the one sport that you haven't medaled in, if that makes sense.
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, I knew that we won our first women's gold foil event in fencing. That happened. So that should be on that list. I think we won our first men's team foil competition. You know, I'm probably going to be terrible at the rest of these. I would guess like canoeing. I would guess at field hockey.
BEN WATERWORTH: Funnily enough, you must have medaled in both because they're not on this list. So the ones that I've got in front of me here. So the US has never medaled in badminton, never medaled in handball, never medaled in table tennis. And the two that surprised me here, because I think of gymnastics, and I think, well, the US dominated in gymnastics, but not so in rhythmic and trampoline. Never medaled in rhythmic and trampoline. And the winter sport, by the way, is biathlon. Never medaled in biathlon. So it's fascinating because we had this whole conversation about like, you know, America wins in everything. So like, okay, well, they're winning in fencing all of a sudden. These are a sport they haven't. So you kind of Google it up. Okay, well, that makes sense. So it's fascinating. It's really interesting.
KEN HANSCOM: Those are great trivia questions and probably ones I should have known.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, you can take that to a trivia night or something. Exactly.
KEN HANSCOM: I'm going to use that with my friends now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Now, in terms of you mentioned before things like Facebook groups and everything along those lines, and also for your company with Ticket Manager and that, plug anything you want to right now. Where can people check out what you do more so? And also any of these groups that maybe people are interested in joining to kind of stay up to date with Olympics moving forward?
KEN HANSCOM: Yeah, first and foremost, if you're interested in attending Olympics, like these groups are out there. They're all named whatever the Olympics is and in planning and preparation. So, for example, we have Beijing 2022 planning and preparation, Paris 2024 planning and preparation, Milan, Cortina, right? The same thing. So all those groups are there. It's just a simple question because we got a lot of people coming in there that are either trying to spam or post political stuff. So we kind of have just a couple of basic questions with the rules in there. But once you just answer those, which is basically, hey, I agree not to yell at other people or do whatever else. I'm getting there and there's just a fantastic group of people helping out. And yeah, if you're a corporate brand, and as you manage looking at your sports and sponsorships, there's some ways that you can help out. Most companies, you do a terrible job of using all their assets for what they intended them to do, which is drive business. We're in the business of helping people do that as well as pull off large events. So we'd love to help you out with that.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just want to say one thing before I let you go, Ken. Obviously, I can imagine you're on board all the LA teams and everything in all the competitions. I'm a Ducks fan, so I just want to say boo, Kings. Can I just say that to you?
KEN HANSCOM: Well, you can, you can. I'll let you get away with it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I said that right at the end. So if you hang up on me, I've done the interview. I can get away with that. Ken, seriously, it's been a lot of fun learning a lot more about what you do, Olympic ticketing and everything along those lines. Best of luck moving forward and fingers crossed for Beijing that you can get there and we can get some fans there as well and really have the true Olympic experience come 2022.
KEN HANSCOM: And maybe I'll see you there, Ben.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fascinating chat there with Ken, really appreciate his time joining us on the show. And should mention as well, Ticket Manager, of course, ticketmanager.com is the website for that. If you want to check out a little bit more about what he does, and if you want to follow him on Twitter as well, at Ken Hanscom is where you can find him. And the Ken Hanscom on Instagram, if you want to check out what he's up to there. We've got some great interviews still to come here and off the podium, obviously. We're pumping them out. We've got a couple a week. We're loving doing this for you. We hope you're enjoying every single second of them as much as we enjoy bringing them to you, learning all aspects between Olympians and people behind the scenes and having bonus special episodes for you as well. Beijing's getting closer and closer. Are you excited? I am so excited. The Winter Olympics, the real Olympics, as I like to keep saying. So many great things to talk about between then and now. Now and then, that didn't really make sense. If you want to follow what we're up to on the show, of course, search Off The Podium on all the social media channels or on Facebook or on Twitter or on Instagram, and hit us up on all the good podcasting platforms. Search for Off The Podium, same place, and hit the subscribe button and leave us some feedback. Leave us a rating. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. Big thanks again to Ken. Thanks for you for listening. My name is Ben. This is Off The Podium. And as always, go left.
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