It wasn't exactly a Hannah Montana stampede, but 67,000 tickets to the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games were reserved in the two weeks they were available in November.
It was "a very, very good program" that yielded about $3.2 million in deposits, said Marty Mathews, chief financial officer of the World Games 2010 Foundation.
It is also "a very powerful thing to take back to potential sponsors" as evidence of the strong interest in the games, CEO Jack Kelly told foundation board members yesterday.
The foundation, which is organizing the games, eventually expects to sell 500,000 to 600,000 tickets to the 16 days of competitions at the Kentucky Horse Park that will determine eight world championships.
To test a new Ticketmaster reservations system devised for the 2010 games, members of the Lexington-based U.S. Equestrian Federation were allowed to reserve tickets during two weeks in November.
They were required to make deposits equal to half the expected ticket price and to reserve tickets to all events in at least one of the eight competitions: dressage, eventing, jumping, driving, endurance, reining, vaulting and para-equestrian.
Mathews and Kelly said tickets were reserved by residents of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Bermuda, the Virgin Islands and Ireland.
The most popular events were dressage (about 22,000 tickets) and jumping (about 20,000).
"More than 90 percent of the buyers came from outside of Kentucky," Kelly said.
He said tickets will be offered to members of other key equestrian groups beginning early next year and will go on sale later to the general public.
Games organizers also said:
• A third major sponsor, in addition to Alltech and the Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital, will be announced soon, possibly this month.
• A consultant has confirmed that the 7,500-seat outdoor stadium to be built for the games can be expanded to 30,000 seats by adding temporary seating. The finding will help organizers determine how many tickets can be sold for the event.
• So far, 125 of the 350 vendor booths planned for the games have been reserved by 76 businesses and other entities, yielding $312,500 in deposits. The price of the average booth is expected to be $15,000.
• 67,000 -- Tickets reserved during a two-week period used to test the Ticketmaster system.
• 500,000-600,000 -- Tickets expected to be sold to the 16 days of competition.
• $3.2 million -- Deposits from initial ticket reservations.
• 22,000 -- Tickets reserved for dressage events, the most of any of the eight competitions at the Games.
• 76 -- Businesses that have reserved vendor booths at the Games.
• $15,000 -- Expected price of an average vendor booth at the Games.
