T

he Indonesia Open badminton tournament will miss the sport’s top magnets this year; including world No. 1 Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia and world No. 2 Lin Dan of China. Ticket sales, however, have been business as usual, reportedly as a result of better event packaging.

“We were a bit worried about the absence of Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan,” Raja Karcis ticket service manager Kamal told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Raja Karcis is the official ticket management service for the Indonesia Open. “Given much better marketing from the Indonesia Open, with a more attractive theme and solid promotion, our business has been running well thus far,” he added.

Kamal said that on a daily basis, ticket sales with prices ranging from Rp 10,000 (US$1.07) to Rp 300,000, were very similar to last year.

During the first day of the event on Tuesday, rajakarcis.com sold about 1,000 tickets. The organizers enjoyed a significant surge on Wednesday, pocketing revenues from about 3,000 ticket sales.Kamal said that the surge during the second day was logical, as most top players had pitched in.

A slump to 2,000 sales, however, occurred on the third day as most top players, including world No. 3 Chen Long of China and world No. 12 Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia, packed their bags to head for home.

“As for today [Friday], we will probably sell about 1,000 tickets,” said Kamal, adding that his company benefited from selling about 10,000 tickets for the six-day tournament.

Although not having the world No. 1 and 2 and the fact that the nation’s golden child Taufik had lost to countryman Sony Dwi Kuncoro in the Thursday’s second round, Kamal said that most of his buyers still came to the event for world No. 9 Simon Santoso in men’s singles and world No. 3 and All England champs Tontowi Ahmad-Liliyana Natsir.

“The newly All England winners are still the reason for most of our buyers attending this event — and then we also have Simon.

“For foreign players, most young spectators come for South Korea’s Lee Yong-dae and Jung Jae-sung [world No. 2 in men’s doubles], just as last year,” he added.

Scalpers are always a present factor at most live contests and performances in Indonesia, including at the Indonesia Open. Kamal said that he, however, did not worry about them.

“It is great to know that our spectators are becoming smarter in securing tickets. They now choose the ticket box over scalpers — maybe because spectators realize that buying from scalpers leads to the vulnerability of [purchasing] fake tickets,” he added that his company is also working in cooperation with blibli.com in selling tickets online.

Business development officer for Blibli.com online shop, Jefrey Maeda, said that many Indonesians were still in the learning phases of using the online shop as an alternative to secure tickets to events. “This is our debut in selling tickets for a sporting event, and so far, we have sold hundreds of tickets on a daily basis,” he added.

— JP/Niken Prathivi