Hamilton

Pan Am Games tickets on sale now via lottery

Tickets for next year's Pan Am Games — including the opening ceremony, a one-night-only show by Cirque du Soleil — go on sale Monday morning.

The Pan Am Games will take place from July 10 to 26, 2015

The Pan Am Games soccer tournament will be played in Hamilton at a new stadium which opened in September. (CBC)

Here's your first chance to get a crack at Pan Am Games soccer tickets and more.

Tickets for next year's Pan Am Games — including the opening ceremony, a one-night-only show by Cirque du Soleil — go on sale Monday morning.

Sports fans can request tickets to watch 41 countries from the Americas and the Caribbean fight for the gold in Toronto, Hamilton and other Ontario communities by going on the Toronto2015.org website at 10 a.m. through Oct. 6.

Organizers will then gauge interest in each event and when more tickets are requested than there are available, the sales will be done through a lottery system similar to what's used at the Olympic Games.

Customers will receive an email in late November to let them know whether their ticket requests were successful, organizers said. Any remaining tickets will then go on sale in December on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Athletics medal events ($80-$140) and swimming ($40-$140) are two of the more expensive events at the Games. Competitions like baseball ($20-$35), soccer ($20-$35) and rugby sevens ($20-$45) are on the cheaper side.

Ticket prices will range from $20-$140 for athletic events and $90-$350 for the ceremonies with roughly 75 per cent of tickets are priced at $45 or less. General sale is scheduled to start in December.

"We've gone with the theme of, 'Affordable, Fun and Accessible,' and we want families to show up," said organizing committee CEO Saad Rafi.

The Pan Am Games will take place from July 10 to 26.

Tickets for the Parapan Games, which will run from Aug. 7 to 15, go on sale in March.