Do you need a “Games Pass” in addition to your ticket to attend the events? – Libération

Two things are enough to enter a site where an event of the Paris Olympic Games is taking place: an identity document and your tickets. And these must be presented from the official mobile application to be accepted.

Question asked by Rachel on July 17, 2024.

The Paris Olympic Games are innovating in several areas, even if it means creating some confusion about the documents to present at the entrance to the events. For the first time, all tickets to attend an event are dematerialized, via a dedicated application, Paris 2024 Tickets. Similarly, the opening ceremony on July 26 will be the first in history to take place outside a stadium. Consequence: to enter the security perimeter of the ceremony, made active on Thursday, July 18, a digital pass called “Games Pass” must be presented in certain (rare) cases.

A superposition of digital documents that raises questions from some spectators, including a reader of CheckNews: “If I go to attend Olympic events in Paris, do I need a Pass or is the ticket enough?” Answer: with an identity document, the ticket is enough. But necessarily on a smartphone.

“There is no need to request an additional pass”

The government website details: “On the day of the opening ceremony, if you have a ticket for the festivities or a Paris 2024 accreditation, it is not necessary to request an additional pass. You only need to present an identity document.” A statement that also applies to the events according to the Paris Olympic Games Organizing Committee, contacted by CheckNews. “The Games Pass is only necessary for people who do not have a ticket and would like to go to the gray areas [la zone en immédiates bordures de Seine, la plus sécurisée, ndlr]”, he reassures.

Second condition: on D-Day, show your ticket – in the form of a QR code – in the Paris 2024 Tickets application with your smartphone. “Only the presentation of the ticket from the application will be accepted during access control,” indicates the olympic games help site. In concrete terms, this means that presenting a screenshot of the QR code or its printed version will not work. The idea is to prevent counterfeiting of tickets as much as possible and to keep track of the origin of the tickets, even if they are resold (which can only be done with the application).

Don’t panic if the QR code doesn’t appear in your app the day before your tests, it will only be generated a few hours before the start of the tests, always with the aim of complicating the task for counterfeiters. Fortunately, it will be possible to access your tickets on the app even without a mobile network. The organizers thus assure that after a single connection to the app, the QR code can be generated without a network when the time comes.

While organizers encourage spectators to each have their own ticket on their smartphone, it is possible to present a single smartphone with all the tickets of a group. A user manual is made available to spectators to find out how to access their tickets.

correction

Edit July 19 at 1 p.m.: removal of an erroneous sentence on security perimeters.