Ticket revenue for Rugby World Cup 2011 has exceeded by 11 times the revenue of the previous largest grossing event in New Zealand history.
Tournament organiser Rugby New Zealand 2011 said that revenue from ticket sales had reached NZ$265.6 million (US$207.7m) dollars from ticket sales of 1.35 million.
The 2005 British and Irish Lions Tour grossed NZ$24 million.
“We now need to make sales of just NZ$2.9 million to meet our financial target of NZ$268.5 million and we fully expect to do so with big crowds expected for the final four matches of the tournament,†said RNZ 2011 CEO, Martin Snedden.
This weekend France plays Wales in the first semi-final at Eden Park in Auckland on Saturday night (local time) with New Zealand’s All Blacks taking on Australia in the second semi-final on Sunday night.
RNZ 2011 confirmed that 7,000 tickets across most categories are available for the first semi-final.
Allocation for the second semi-final is currently exhausted, but a few hundred additional tickets are expected to be released later in the week.
