'Sold out' signs tipped for early Lions games

Officials are confident of dusting off "Sold out" signs for the first three games of the Lions tour.

Last month there were doom-and-gloom stories about the pile of unsold tickets for the eight non-test matches on the tour.

But administrators in Bay of Plenty and Taranaki reckon they will have sold their remaining tickets before game-day, and the Maori match in Hamilton on June 11, the third game of the tour, is already a sellout.

Bay of Plenty start the tour on June 4 at Rotorua and chief executive Paul Abbott said a shade more than 4000 tickets remained for sale.

"The bulk are general admission tickets on the embankment but we're tracking reasonably well at the moment," he said. The BoP union is opening another ticketing outlet in Tauranga this week and Abbott is "pretty confident" the tour will start before a full house.

He believes the negative speculation about large chunks of empty seats was a result of the hype that punters had to move smartly to get into the New Zealand Rugby Union's ballot system or risk missing out.

"People thought every game would be oversubscribed by a significant amount," he said. But "people are just starting to wake up to the fact the game is less than three weeks away and now they're talking about the game".

Abbott believes about 1200 Lions supporters will be at the Rotorua game, based on packages sold through Britain and the odd bit of foot traffic through the union doors.

Taranaki union chief executive Paul Easton said about 16,000 tickets had been sold for the 21,500-capacity park in New Plymouth.

Like Abbott, he believes there was confusion, or apprehension, about the ballot system.

"Now everybody's got an opportunity to buy a ticket," Easton said, adding that some grandstand tickets were still available.

In terms of pre-sales, the union was "way ahead" of any previous game, but he urged people to buy in advance to make for an easier night on June 8.

Easton predicted that the game would be a sellout, adding that 1500 Lions supporters were expected.

Waikato union spokesman Pat Mellsop said about 31,000 people would be at the enlarged Waikato Stadium for the Maori game - a record for the ground.

The union has a five-year resource consent to keep the capacity at that figure, which is a 5000 increase.

The ground must hold at least 30,000 to be eligible to host top test matches.