Four months before the opening of the Olympic Games, the SNCF is not able to sell tickets for departure or arrival from three Parisian stations on July 26, the day of the opening ceremony, due to uncertainty over access to stations. The SNCF is blocking sales of trains departing from or arriving at the Paris-Gare de Lyon, Paris-Bercy and Austerlitz stations on this date, despite this being a Friday of one of the biggest crossover weekends in the world. summer, due to the uncertainty of access conditions to these stations.
Austerlitz and Bercy, from where the Intercités leave for Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges or Toulouse and the night trains, but also the Gare de Lyon, the largest station in France for main lines, are in fact located in the red zone, c i.e. where motorized access will be prohibited. It can be accessed on foot or by public transport, but here too, certain stations located on the banks of the Seine will be closed for security reasons, complicating access.
The ticket office taken by storm
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, which for the first time will not take place in a stadium but on the Seine, will see 326,000 spectators crowd the banks of the river to watch the parade of the different delegations by boat. Tickets “will be put on sale upon validation of the conditions for organizing the opening ceremony of Paris 2024 by the public authorities”, specifies the SNCF on its site.
Travelers stormed the SNCF site as soon as summer sales opened on Wednesday. At noon, the public group had already sold 800,000 tickets, he announced. The SNCF site and application had an audience 50% higher than last year. “The peak of sales was reached from the opening around 6:00 a.m. with up to eight TGVs sold per minute”, or 3,000 to 4,000 tickets, indicated the SNCF. The Trainline platform recorded an increase in reservations of 115% on this first day compared to last year.