Some appointments validate a company. Others define it. Being selected as the ticketing service provider for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Los Angeles 2028 is, unambiguously, the latter.
The LA 2028 Games will be the largest ticketing operation ever mounted in the United States. Over 800 sessions across dozens of venues, spanning 16 days of Olympic competition and 12 days of Paralympic competition. Millions of tickets. Multiple sales channels. A global audience buying from every time zone. And the operational stakes that come with the most-watched sporting event on the planet.
Why this programme is different
Every major sporting event is complex. But an Olympic Games operates at a scale and under constraints that no other event approaches. Consider what the ticketing programme must deliver:
- Registration and ballot systems capable of handling millions of applications in compressed windows
- Multi-phase sales with different allocation rules, pricing tiers, and eligibility criteria
- Stakeholder ticket portals for National Olympic Committees, sponsors, media, workforce, and hospitality partners — each with distinct allocation rules and reporting requirements
- Real-time inventory management across 800+ sessions with different venue configurations
- Access control at every gate of every venue, every day, handling credential types that range from spectator tickets to workforce passes to VIP hospitality
- Multi-currency, multi-language, and multi-timezone support for a genuinely global customer base
- Resale and transfer mechanisms that maintain security and prevent unauthorised secondary market activity
- Real-time reporting to the organising committee, the IOC, and dozens of stakeholder groups with different data requirements
And all of this must work flawlessly under the most intense public scrutiny imaginable. An Olympic Games has no dress rehearsal. There's no quiet launch period to iron out bugs. The system must work from day one, at full scale, with the world watching.
The partnership model
The appointment pairs CTS EVENTIM — Europe's largest ticketing company and the technology platform behind multiple previous Olympic Games — with AXS, a leading US-based ticketing platform with deep experience in American venues, sports leagues, and large-scale events. The combination brings together EVENTIM's international event expertise and proven Games-scale platform with AXS's US market knowledge and venue relationships.
This isn't a vendor relationship. It's a multi-year operational partnership that spans technology delivery, operational planning, testing, rehearsal, and live Games execution. The ticketing service provider embeds with the organising committee years before the Games begin, shaping decisions about venue configurations, pricing strategies, sales phases, and stakeholder programmes long before the first ticket goes on sale.
Building on Games experience
CTS EVENTIM's platform has delivered ticketing for previous Olympic Games, bringing operational lessons that can't be learned any other way. Each Games programme builds on the last — refining the technology, the operational playbooks, and the risk management frameworks that make the difference between a smooth operation and a very public failure.
The platform's architecture reflects what Games delivery demands: real-time inventory across hundreds of sessions, an API layer that enables partner integrations without compromising security or performance, ballot and allocation systems designed for extreme oversubscription, and access control that can handle the throughput required at Olympic venues — where tens of thousands of spectators must pass through gates in concentrated time windows.
What this means for the industry
An Olympic appointment is more than a contract. It's a signal to every rights holder, every federation, and every major event organiser in the world. If the platform is trusted to deliver the most complex ticketing programme on the planet, it can deliver anything else.
The work has already begun. Years of planning, technology development, testing, and stakeholder coordination lie between now and the Opening Ceremony. But the foundation is set: a proven platform, a proven team, and a programme that will set the standard for what major event ticketing can be.