According to an article in today's Wall St Journal, the 2006 Olympics in Torino (starting Feb 10) is not seeing blockbuster sales. There are still thousands of unsold tickets, lots of hotel rooms available, and airline tickets as well.

The article did advise that North American visitors might want to try to order any event tickets through the EU sellers if they can find a European address to have them delivered. Apparently the North American distributor is charging a 20% premium over the price from the EU agency. But the EU tickets have to go to an EU address.

At Select Italy, we've had some experience researching and ordering tickets for the games. As far as EU delivery, the ticketing agency is being very persnickety about delivery. They're sending all tickets by courier and the person receiving the tickets must be able to demonstrate that they are the same person that ordered them or they must fill out a notarized "delego" form to officially name another recipient. The couriers are going to call the recipient by cell phone before delivery to make sure that the person will be there to accept delivery. They explicitly rule out dropping off the tickets with doormen, porters, or in a lobby. So, unless you actually live in Europe, it'll be hard to get the tickets you order.