Hi y’all,

Parisian and late-convinced to the Olympic craze, I have one tip for our American friends in what made Paris so special in my opinion : the affordability.

Now i KNOW people will tell you some of the events were insanely expensive, but what made the venues’ crowds so great and so many tickets sold were :

• Free tickets for kids : French public local authorities had a few thousand tickets they could chose to give to anybody. The Department of Seine-Saint-Denis gave these to the kids in the ASE (foster care), and they were insanely cheering at any venues they could go to. At pretty much every venue I’ve been, I could see kids from French public schools with free tickets : they had a blast and cheered like hell.

• Free or cheap venues to meet the athletes : the Parc des Champions was free, the Club France and most of the other fan houses were around 5€ and you could meet your favorite athletes. Notable exception : the Team USA house was 325€ a ticket…

- Free fanzones everywhere : pretty much every park in Paris, or town hall, had a free fan zone in place, with places to see, free water fountain, and you could bring your food and have a picnic.

• Free activities : the balloon going up each night in the Louvres garden was amazing and you could go see it for free. It was awesome to be there with people of the entire world.

• and last but not least : free or cheap venues : you could cheer for the cycling, the swimming marathon, the triathlons and the marathon for free, that make 8 free sports events. You could even participate in the Marathon-for-all, at night through the street of Paris.

As for the sport events, I went to see the rugby, the football and the kayak and never paid more than 50€ a ticket. My friend Paul who’s a lunatic went to see pretty much everything and the most expensive ticket he had to pay was athletism, in a REALLY good seat, and it was around 100€ !

I found it a bit scary for LA 2028 that the USA house was so expensive. Games are awesome when they are affordable.