After the start of ticket sales for the Eurovision events in Helsinki were announced earlier, a few people abroad were left wondering on the details of the booking system.

Mr. Seppo Keski-Pukkila from Lippupalvelu Oy (Ticket Service Finland), the company responsible for the ticket sales both domestically in Finland and abroad, kindly answered our questions on some details.

When the telephone booking starts on Sunday, 10th December at 12 Noon EET (11 am CET), Lippupalvelu will have all of its operators answering the calls. Their number is several dozens and there is a queue system installed on the phone lines amounting to about double the number of operators. The latest major event Lippupalvelu sold tickets for, the IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Helsinki in 2005, the phone lines got overcrowded for about an hour at the start of sales, after which the customers found it quite easy to get through to an operator. Lippupalvelu expects the Eurovision ticket sales to go very similarly.

The phone operators have excellent language skills and all of them are all fluent at least in Swedish and English and some service can be given in French.

The 0600-prefixed phone number, that will be used is a premium rate number (2 €/min + connection charge) only when called from a Finnish telephone. Lippupalvelu has no premium rate charging contracts with any foreign telecom operators, so callers will only be expected to pay a normal call fee to Finland, set by the operator of the caller.
The number for bookings from abroad is + 358 3036 00 30. NOTE - previously a wrong number was given!

On the 12th December, only tickets, that have not yet been sold by telephone or via Lippupalvelu’s sales points will be released to be sold over the internet. There are no quotas of tickets saved to be sold only online.

There are separate quotas for domestic Finnish and international customers, and customers are placed in these categories based on their address, where the tickets will be delivered. All international tickets will be delivered by mail.

Half of the tickets sold will be part of the two package deals and half of the total will be sold as individual tickets.

The number of tickets any individual can buy has been limited to five, to avoid illegal ticket touting.

For more info see YLE.fi/eurovision