Rugby:World Cup ticket sales in New Zealand were approximately NZ$100 million (€55m) below their final target but organisers remained confident rugby fans would snap up the remaining tickets in the four months before the tournament starts in September.
The Christchurch earthquake in February had forced organisers to refund about €11 million from the 130,000 tickets sold for the seven matches that had been scheduled for the city.
Christchurch ticket holders have priority for the rescheduled matches and would receive notification on how they could purchase those tickets on Friday, organisers said in a statement.
Prior to the earthquake, organisers had sold a total of 919,000 tickets, worth €105 million. They have budgeted for a total ticket revenue of just under €150 million.
"Pre-Christchurch, ticket sales were exactly where we expected them to be," Rugby New Zealand 2011 chief executive Martin Snedden said in the statement today - the first day tickets were delivered to fans.
"The transfer of matches so close to kick-off is unprecedented for any major event and has created significant additional challenges, but we remain confident that we should be able to recoup the bulk of the refunded sales within the next two months or so.
"Overall, we still remain confident that, by tournament-end, we will achieve our sales target of $268 million (€105m) and 1.35 million tickets."
Tournament organisers are only allowed to keep revenue generated from ticket sales and must underwrite the costs of hosting the tournament and pay a licence fee to the International Rugby Board.
Organisers had budgeted for an operating loss of about €22 million, which is to be underwritten by the New Zealand government and New Zealand Rugby Union.
Snedden said the final phase of ticket sales would begin on July 4th, when all remaining tickets would be made available for purchase.
"Tickets will remain on sale until they are gone and we urge fans to get in quick as this really will represent the last opportunity to secure a place ringside at rugby's biggest tournament," Snedden said.
"The final sales phase is traditionally a strong sales period for major events. As was the case in Australia in 2003 and France in 2007 we fully expect that to be the case in New Zealand."
