2026 Worlds in Prague - info & planning thread

[Evilynn]

Well, that was a bit of a shit show. TicketBastard wasn't much better than Ticket Portal, I suspect, changed languages to Czech mid order, got a bunch of different error messages, and had to pay for each ticket separately, but at least I have my 6 tickets now. All of them in the lower bowl in the east end of the arena, except on Thursday when I grabbed seats in 103 and 110.

 

[mattiecat13]

Looking at the seat map there are two all-event tickets left in the lower bowl. But if you look at single sessions there are plenty of tickets available, especially for short programs earlier in the week. It just makes no sense to me why the LOC would put both all event and single session tickets for sale at the same time.

 

[tony]

Looking at the seat map there are two all-event tickets left in the lower bowl. But if you look at single sessions there are plenty of tickets available, especially for short programs earlier in the week. It just makes no sense to me why the LOC would put both all event and single session tickets for sale at the same time.

Yup, it was just as I suspected after comparing the all-event map to the individual seat map. Not to mention the three sections behind the judges never opening (although-- I know the ISU goes there but I would hope the skaters get put there this time, too, instead of way up at the top in the corner like in Boston).

105-109 never opened for all-event, they only opened overnight for individual tickets but I wouldn't want those seats anyways.

Seeing that there aren't a tremendous amount of people talking about this across social media, I'm thinking maybe bots were set up to grab a lot of the best seats on night one, particularly for the free skates. By the time @thvu and I got in, which was only about 5 or so minutes later, there were ZERO choices left in any of the best seats until I reloaded my phone to death and someone's 15 minutes had timed out.

What I'd be curious in seeing is how many all-event tickets actually sold because based on the massive availability of the short programs still, I would not be at all surprised if that number is something like 200 or less. For reference, there are 2 lower bowl singular all-event seats left, but there are still 1,254 seats available for the lower bowl in the pairs short program.

ETA- now that said, I was fully prepared to get tickets today and sell off my first-night purchases, but I'm so happy I ended up snagging those ones because it really wasn't going to get better. One seat from the aisle on the side closer to the middle of the rink, two rows behind the most expensive section, and just off to the side of where the panels are sitting.

 

[mattiecat13]

If you include the golden ticket sections of 113 and 114 and the sections @tony mentioned, those are a lot of sections that were blocked off for all-event sales. Perhaps the LOC felt they would concentrate on selling more tickets to those who are more local than to people who would have to travel long distances to attend the entire event?

 

[thvu]

I lost much needed sleep over nothing. And so goes figure skating.

 

[upnights]

Looking at the seat map there are two all-event tickets left in the lower bowl. But if you look at single sessions there are plenty of tickets available, especially for short programs earlier in the week. It just makes no sense to me why the LOC would put both all event and single session tickets for sale at the same time.

Exactly. Not only did they sell single sessions at the same time as all-events, but only a few areas were available for all-events & only the very difficult Ticketportal site sold all-events. So, there are no good seats available for free skates, & there’s no point in traveling to go watch half a world championship. Has this stupid ticketing scheme ever been used? I’ve never seen this in the many competitions for which I have bought (all-event) tickets.

 

[tony]

We ranted about all of this here

 

[kwanfan1818]

As a non-technical e-commerce person, your experiences make me weep.

 

[mattiecat13]

There are also a lot of complaints on the ISU Worlds 2026 Facebook page.

 

[tony]

One of the commenters on the Youtube video mentioned they were emailing their frustrations with the organizing committee and was told that only 20% of the total seats were dedicated to all-event purchases. Seeing how many of those are still open in the 400s, I am wondering how many actually were open in the lower bowl to begin with. Couldn't have been many.

 

[Chellersm]

That is a wild strategy on behalf of the organizers. They should have at least communicated that ahead of time. How would it have hurt to have released more detailed information about which seats would be all-event, which would be individual, and which would be pre-sale, versus public? Then people could have made plans and set their expectations accordingly.

I'm not arguing that they owe us fans anything in particular as far as tickets... they can organize how they see fit. But clear communication ahead of time can solve a variety of issues.

 

[mattiecat13]

@tony you mentioned in the video St. Louis hasn’t sold many tickets so far for Nationals. I’m surprised since it is an Olympic year. I’m wondering if the body-of-work rules in choosing the Olympic team could have something to do with that. Why pay $$$ to attend when you know ahead of time who is likely to be on the team based on past performance? (I still feel sorry for poor Ross Miner and I wasn’t even a fan of his.)

 

[BittyBug]

@tony you mentioned in the video St. Louis hasn’t sold many tickets so far for Nationals. I’m surprised since it is an Olympic year. I’m wondering if the body-of-work rules in choosing the Olympic team could have something to do with that. Why pay $$$ to attend when you know ahead of time who is likely to be on the team based on past performance? (I still feel sorry for poor Ross Miner and I wasn’t even a fan of his.)

It's an interesting question but I'm not sure that anyone other than ardent figure skating fans knows about the selection process, and I'd assume that ardent fans would still like to see the skating since it's not just about who will make the Olympic team. I wonder whether some of the lack of demand might be attributed to Canadians choosing not to travel to the U.S., as there is usually a core contingent of Canadian skating fans who attend U.S. nationals. Or maybe people's budgets are being allocated to other skating events (like the Olympics themselves).

 

[tony]

It's an interesting question but I'm not sure that anyone other than ardent figure skating fans knows about the selection process, and I'd assume that ardent fans would still like to see the skating since it's not just about who will make the Olympic team. I wonder whether some of the lack of demand might be attributed to Canadians choosing not to travel to the U.S., as there is usually a core contingent of Canadian skating fans who attend U.S. nationals. Or maybe people's budgets are being allocated to other skating events (like the Olympics themselves).

I don't think the Canadians are going to make a massive dent in the scope of most tickets not being sold yet. Rather, I think people really do have their eyes set on bigger, such as the Olympics. That, or the location and general cost is just too much for the current economy with US-based fans.

 

[Debbie S]

Since only all-event tix are currently on sale, it's hard to know how many locals will attend, since they usually buy single-session tix. I think fewer fans are buying all-event tix, due to prices, economy, aging fan base. If it's a city with a large skating community and tradition, that people also want to travel to (ex: Boston), tix will be in greater demand than a city less likely to be on people's destination lists. But not every event can be in Boston. Columbus was able to fill the arena by doing a lot of local promotion. St. Louis might be able to do the same.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

It's an interesting question but I'm not sure that anyone other than ardent figure skating fans knows about the selection process, and I'd assume that ardent fans would still like to see the skating since it's not just about who will make the Olympic team.

I agree. I can’t imagine body of work has an effect at all. I mean, gymnastics uses a combo of all kinds of things and trials are still well attended.