Camping out to Buy a Ticket for Korea-Portugal Game

Many people are clustering on Incheon Munhak Stadium to buy the ticket for Korea-Portugal match, which is a very important match for advancing to the Round of 16. The Stadium area is changed into the camp village.

As soon as the Denmark-France match is finished on June 11, 2002, people from local areas and foreign countries clustered on the Munhak Stadium and are currently standing ready to buy the ticket for Korea-Portugal match.

As of 4:00 PM, June 12th, 2002, about 500 tents are installed stretched over 2 km from the ticket office of the stadium. Campers are maintaining public order through organizing an independent volunteer group.

Jaehyeok Park, Volunteer (28 years old man living in Wolgae-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul) said “I asked a person’s intention on ticket purchase going around the tents. About 5,000 tickets will be sold by the camping people. Someone in one tent desires to buy Max. 200 tickets. Maybe the ticket distribution problem will occur this time”.

Ticket office of Daegu Stadium limited the ticket purchase to 2 tickets per person for on-the-spot sale, but there is any restriction on the ticket purchase per tent.

Hence, the volunteer group decided to limit a selling quantity on the basis of number of persons in each tent with camping people as of 9:00 PM of that day. The volunteers group is scheduled to expose a ticket scalping as well as to maintain the ticket-purchasing order.

Seongsik Yoon from New York State, USA (23 years old student from Syracuse University, 2nd year) and 2 more persons are in the middle of camping for 2 days in the No. 167 tent given by the volunteer group.

He said “one tent is covered by uncountable persons, keeping a night watch on three shifts. I cannot estimate how many tickets one tent will buy. Although I don’t get the ticket, if the Korean team advances to the Round of 16, I will never blame anyone”. He pray for a victory of Korean team in the Korea-Portugal match.

Korean Organizing Committee for the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan plans to sell the remaining tickets through on-the-spot sale in the ticket office of Incheon Munhak Stadium on the day of match. There are approx. 2000 tickets including non-selling tickets in foreign countries.

Incheon Administrative office of Korean Organizing Committee for the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan mentioned “We cannot know exact selling quantity of tickets because Byrome will make over the non-selling tickets just before the match. We plan to sell 2 tickets per person to people in front of the ticket office on that day of the match (June 14, 2002)”.

Hee-Jae Park min07@donga.com