With still more than two years to go until the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, tickets have already gone on sale.

And with this initial sale have come boatloads of complaints from ticket-buyers, frustrated over astronomically high prices, surprisingly limited inventory, confusing terms and seemingly unreasonable purchase limits.

All of that consternation comes with the added fact that this first ticket availability period was meant for locals to the Los Angeles metropolitan area (and Oklahoma City, thanks to the handful of events taking place there).

If a ticketing process meant for an incredibly small portion of the global audience that’s interested in attending these games could go so far sideways, what will it mean when sales are opened up to everyone else? Will there even be any tickets left to purchase at that point?

Those are all valid questions, and really, only LA28 organizers will have concrete answers to them. However, I do think I can speak confidently when I say that, if you haven’t secured the Olympics tickets you want, it’s not time to panic. At least not yet.

Now, I am not a part of the LA28 organizing committee, but I do come at it from a few different angles. First, I do live in the Los Angeles area, and thus did register for — and gain access to — the ticket portal, and have tickets for a few Olympics events already in hand.

So you can count me among the “lucky” ones in that regard, but I can’t say I bought cheap tickets, or that I obtained tickets to every event I wished to watch.

Second, I have plenty of experience buying tickets to worldwide events such as these. I just attended the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, and spent the better part of a year and a half scrounging for tickets for the events I wanted — with success, for the most part. I also registered for every ticket drop for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and that hasn’t gone nearly as well.

My point is that I have plenty of experience with trying to buy tickets for high-demand events, of which the 2028 Olympics certainly qualifies. As it stands today, I can definitely say that I’m not done buying LA28 tickets. Or, at least I hope I’m not.

I plan to get in on as many future ticket sales as I can — just this week, LA28 announced that registration is now open for the second ticket drop, to begin in August 2026 (you can register at this link if you haven’t already).

Though I can only share my own experiences, I can share what has worked for me in trying to manage obtaining the tickets that I want. If you’re fretting about missing out on 2028 Olympics tickets, here are a few tips to manage the future process.

Don’t let your expectations get too high

It’s natural to get excited about seeing all the events you want to see at an event like the Olympics. But you also have to keep in mind that a worldwide sporting event attracts worldwide demand.

That was certainly the case when I set out to purchase tickets for the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina. I had my pie-in-the-sky events I wanted to attend, and I also established a bare minimum for what I would be satisfied with. If you do the same, ideally where you’ll land is somewhere in the middle.

What the baseline also helps with is once you go past it in terms of tickets obtained, you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised — and thus less prone to disappointment if future ticket-buying endeavors don’t go the way you’d hoped.

Yes, it’s just psychology at work, but the point is to not add too much stress to what should ultimately be a fun endeavor: Going to the Olympics.

Make your ticket-buying a team event

The LA28 ticket process stipulates that each registered customer is entitled to purchase 12 tickets across the entirety of the games. But as of right now, I’m set to go to at least six different events, as a party of three — 18 tickets in total.

How did I do it? Well, I’m lucky to have a spouse who is also very interested in watching the 2028 Olympics, and she registered to buy tickets as well. In fact, she was given a purchasing opportunity earlier than me, and thus bought tickets earlier than I did. (The third person in our party, of course, is our daughter.)

So if you plan on going to the Games in a group of adults, don’t just rely on one person to go through the process of buying tickets. Everyone in your party should register, and everyone should have an equal stake in trying to obtain the tickets you all want.

In essence, you’re adding another lottery ticket to your drawing and raising the chances that you’ll get a shot at the events you’re really hoping for.

There’ll always be another chance (usually)

All the hysteria about Drop 1 — There are no more tickets for the event I want! All the cheap tickets are gone! My purchasing time is too late in the process! — seemed to lose sight of this simple fact: It was called Drop 1 for a reason.

Granted, LA28 has not been all that clear about how future drops will proceed. It’s likely by design, as remaining availability and demand will play big parts in determining how subsequent draws are structured.

And at least with Drop 2, organizers have confirmed that anyone who had access to Drop 1 but didn’t purchase their full allotment of 12 tickets, along with anyone who wasn’t selected for Drop 1, would automatically be registered for the next release, as well as any future ones.

With large-scale events, there will always be another way to obtain tickets. It might not be in the location or the price point that you desire, but you can at least count on opportunities to arise in the future.

For the Milano Cortina Olympics, I was able to buy event tickets nearly a year before the Games, as well as a few months before the Games, and finally, a week or so before the Games. That’s because I continually returned to the ticket portal to check on ticket availability and prices for the events I wanted to see, which brings me to my next point …

Olympic-level perseverance can pay off

Like with anything you really, really want, it pays to be persistent. Again, you’re competing with like-minded Olympic fans all around the world in trying to get 2028 tickets.

While the whole concept of ticket drops can seem intimidating, I would not be surprised if a general ticket sale will take place within the final six months before the Games. Yes, availability might seem like fighting for scraps at that point, but there’s no way of knowing until we reach that point.

While definitely not often, it is possible to find high-demand events and great-value tickets in these late stages. Again, it takes frequent checking of the ticket portal — in the final three months leading up to Milano Cortina, I looked at their ticket site almost daily.

Finally, hanging out in Olympic communities on sites like Reddit, or in in-person gatherings once the Games have begun, can often lead to ticket opportunities, if you’re the social type.

All of this is to say: Don’t give up if you don’t have your 2028 Olympics tickets yet! We have a long way to go, and a lot of opportunities left to uncover.