Hottest ticket in town
ABOUT 25,000 Cats members will have until 1pm today to snap up preliminary final tickets as the AFL prepares for a 90,000-strong crowd at the MCG on Friday night.
Cats and Tigers members will each be allocated 25,000 tickets when the pre-sale opens at 9am today and remains open for four hours.
AFL spokesman Jay Allen said competing club members received the largest allocation of tickets for the Cats-Tigers game with the rest split between the Melbourne Cricket Club, AFL members and the public. “If members don’t buy (tickets) in their allocation (those tickets) then get released to the general public,” Mr Allen said.
General public tickets for the Cats game — that will begin at 7:50pm Friday — go on sale at 2pm today.
Ticketek will again stagger ticket sales for the preliminary finals with AFL members getting access to tickets for the Cats-Tigers game at 11am today. MCC visitor and reserved tickets will be available an hour later.
Tickets to the preliminary finals begin from $65 after the AFL put a freeze on prices earlier this year.
Tickets for Collingwood and GWS members will go on sale from 9am tomorrow with AFL member and general public tickets available later in the day.
MCC visitor tickets and reserved seats tickets for that game will be available from 3pm today.
The AFL says Geelong members bought just 9000 out of 27,500 member tickets for the Cats’ qualifying final against Collingwood.
Meanwhile, V/Line will run express coaches stopping at Geelong, Lara and Tarneit to cope with demand on Friday night, and extra trains will operate after the game.
Geelong Football Club spokeswoman Stacey Oates said Cats members can register for the AFL Grand Final ticket ballot from 8am Wednesday.
Priority one members will be able to register between 8am-noon on Wednesday; priority two from 1pm-6pm, and priority three from 7pm-9pm.
If the Cats make the grand final, members will be given access to 17,000 tickets.
Ms Oates said 5936 members are guaranteed Grand Final tickets.
The cost of grand final tickets will increase by 3 per cent this year with entrylevel tickets starting from $155.
Fans will be able to watch Cats players train in grand final week if the club wins on Friday.