Tickets for the 2020 US Olympic Swimming Trials in Omaha, Nebraska are now on sale, and within 20 minutes of opening, all seats in the lower bowl of the arena were almost sold out.
As of posting, the only tickets available in the lower bowl are $530 all-session tickets at the turn end of the pool. Several hundred of those seats remain along with ample inventory in the 2nd level.
This anecdotally seems to be by-far the fastest opening-bell rush on tickets for American swimming’s crowned jewel since the event moved to Omaha. The event sold out for the first time ever in 2016, and is expected to do so again in 2020.
““Fans, whether they’re avid swimmers or not, understand the level of competition taking place in Omaha at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Swimming,” US National Team Managing Director Lindsay Mintenko said on Monday. “This is the most competitive swimming Trials on the globe, with many of the sport’s top athletes. You can’t get any closer to these Olympians on home soil. This is where you want to be June 21-28, 2020.”
4-day ticket packages are expected to go on sale November 15th, if any are available, while daily and single-session tickets wouldn’t go on sale until February. At this point, it seems unlikely that there will be any tickets left for daily buyers, and perhaps not for 4-day packages either.
The CHI Health Arena (formerly CenturyLink Center) seats about 18,320 for a basketball game, though that capacity is reduced slightly for Trials because the pool deck is built over the first few rows of seating.
A certain portion of the lower-level seating is reserved for sponsors, athletes, and coaches. No exact figures are available, but a solid guesstimate is about 15 or 20% of the lower-bowl seating is unavailable to the general public.
On one hand this sounds great, selling out quickly means people want to go, and I have my tickets. But I’ve heard several younger kids/parents from my team talking about going to watch for a couple days, and this article makes it sound like they may not be able to get tickets. Or if they can get tickets, they could be even pricier than they already are. Watching OTs could be the thing that inspires a young swimmer to continue. If the age groupers can’t go to watch because they can’t get tickets, or can’t afford the scalped tickets, it is a problem for the sport.
There were plenty of tickets left for the PSS in Fresno. Do young football players quit because they can’t get tickets to the Super Bowl? Do young basketball players quit because they can’t get Finals tickets?
This sport has been age-grouper-centered for a long time. At some point, it has to be professionalized. You know what else will inspire age groupers to keep going? $1 million/year paychecks after they finish college.
Totally excited to be going to my first Trials!
Buying tickets did feel like the old college days way back battling with Ticketmaster. At least this time there wasn’t a busy signal just that annoying ‘tickets will be available soon’ message for 15 mins followed by the tickets you wanted never being available and not grabbing you the most comparable available ones but making you start over. It shouldn’t be that hard.
But, hey, I got tickets and while I know it isn’t a fair comparison since the CHI Center is 7 times larger than the NCAA pool in Austin, at least there are publicly available tickets unlike NCAAs!
Go USA!
So if we were hoping for 4 day passes, when should we go to plan B and buy full sessions passes?
I don’t have a crystal ball….but I suspect not much will be left for 4 day passes directly.
I do suspect there is going to be a lively resale market this year.
Thanks for the wonderful input this far that you and SwimSwam have provided on maneuvering through the ticket buying process, Braden!
If I want to go for the first 4 days and sell my tickets for the last 4 days, do you know if they typically allow that? I assume they just give you a book of tickets, so you can easily give away or sell some days’ tickets?
the all session ticket was a book of tickets for each session in 2016.
Tyler – I’m not an attorney and haven’t read the ticket licensing agreements; however, I do know that this has happened often in prior years. I don’t think there were any names on the tickets or anything else that would keep you from selling them or giving them away.
I bought tickets in 2016 from two different resellers – one through PrimeSports and the other was Seat Geek, I think.
We got our passes in 2016 via resale and it got quite pricey. We were hoping to avoid that this year.. but alas. We may be leaning towards plan b. Thank you, even without your crystal ball you affirmed my suspicion.
Hi Everyone, We had a similar experience today online. Three of us were trying to get tickets, but my computer kept denying me from getting the lower bowl tickets that we wanted. We ended up with 2 sets of tickets. One set in section 113 row 13, and the other set, Section 221 row D. Neither was what we wanted, but since we’ve never been there, which are the better seats? I’m concerned about the banner being in front of us in section 113 ( see the USASWIMMING website) and I am concerned about not being able to see anything from section 221. If anyone has experience with either of these two sections I’d appreciate input. Does does being behind… Read more »
Hey Kimberly – I haven’t sat in every seat in the arena, but it’s a relatively-compact place: there’s no really bad seats. It’s a big arena, but it’s not like a football stadium with 5 or 6 tiers.
Here’s the view from about halfway up section 220 (221 will be one section left, mid pool). Keep in mind that the pool deck is built up another…12 feet? Maybe from the basketball floor. So everybody’s seat is about 4 rows better than it would be for basketball.
https://aviewfrommyseat.com/photo/100945/CHI+Health+Center+Omaha/section-220/row-L/seat-13/
Thank you! Do you know anything about the usa banner that they put up for finals? Does it restrict the view?
I don’t, unfortunately. You might email them and ask.
That banner was not up during racing in 2016 – only during awards. In fact, I am looking at a prelim photo I took from sec. 229 looking down the entire pool. No banner. I found another photo I have from mid-pool looking at sec. 113 on Sat night finals in ’26 during the awards for DiRado and Franklin when the banner was up and those two were being recognized.
Kimberly I personally think you will be very happy with section 221 you’re right in the middle! And as I’ve mentioned in previous posts you definitely want to be able to see the entire pool if you can. I sat right behind the starting blocks on the opposite end in a VIP area in 2016 for a couple of sessions and although it was super cool to be that close to the swimmers when they came out of the ready room all I was able to see is the start and literally nothing else so again being “closer” is not always better.
Thank you. I really wanted to be as close as possible. but you may be right.
We were in a middle section (either 204 or 205) in 2016, second row from the top and the view was amazing. We were very happy. They show things on the jumbotron, too. Take binoculars for viewing things/people up close, but those seats were not bad.
The count is much lower. Hard to quantify how much is driven by the faster qualifying times, but the later opening to the cycle could have dramatically impacted this number. We’ll have a better idea of how well they’re doing in hitting their goals of a smaller meet after this summer’s championship meets
Ticketmaster has always had the worst refresh technology. You spend 30 mins or more trying to find seats b/c available seats are slow to disappear once someone else grabs them.
Lucky I at least got section 203, midway up. Anyone ever sat up that high? I’m worried it will have a bad view.
You will not be disappointed at all those are great seats.From what I’ve been told that is the start finish end. so even though you are not in the middle at least you’ll get to see the finishes which is huge and being higher up you will see the whole race whereas if you were in the same area lower down you would miss a lot of the race. I sat in three different areas in 2016 and one of my most enjoyable experiences was when I sat super high up because I got to see everything that was going on including all of the light show and the craziness that happens and being able to see the entire pool… Read more »
Thank you!
Excellent! Hoping this is true. We ended up in what appears to be 2nd row of 204 and are super excited!
Got two tickets first row of the upper bowl around the 15M mark, I’d assume. Super excited as this will by my first Trials experience. I’ve wanted to go since 2008.
It will blow your mind.
Did anyone sit at the turn end in 2016 and was it ok? Any section better than others that are remaining? I’m wondering why 118 would be sold out but 109 has so many left?
118 and 109 are furthest from the finish .I definitely think you want to be closer to the middle of the pool even if you’re high up
“Swim,” I was thinking about your post and something that happened earlier with someone I know…I think that when you look at what’s available the only sections that I think are completely sold out are in gray but the areas in light blue just have “limited” seating.
So, if you called Ticketmaster instead of getting them online they could probably look and depending on how many people are in your party you might get much better seats if you’re willing to sit like in a row by yourself and then have your people that you were with sit in a row in front of you or behind you. I would honestly do that before I would sit in section… Read more »