Tickets fears justified as report says GB fans were sold short by London 2012

LONDON: The 2012 Olympic Games were an outstanding sporting show but one less-than-perfect sphere was ticketing and the extent of the failure to play fair with British fans has been laid bare by the full review of the sales process writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

A 976-page document highlights the gross number of tickets available to the ?Olympic family? compared to the relatively few available to the paying public for the most popular events.

For example:

* ?a sailing finals day on August 9 ? when Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell won silver in the men?s 470 ? saw 851 tickets go to sponsors but only single ticket made available to the public;

* Danny Boyle?s iconic opening ceremony ? one of the most in-demand tickets of the fortnight ? was watched by a crowd in which only 44pc accounted for public sales while 66pc went to the so-called ?Olympic family?;

* Only 43pc of tickets went to the public on the day in the velodrome when Sir Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny, Phillip Hindes won the men?s sprint final;

* Novak Djokovic?s opening Olympic match on Centre Court at Wimbledon, saw 97pc of the available seats go to Olympic members and federations;

* Just 1,046 of the 4,326 people who paid to watch triumphant triathletes Alistair and Jonny Brownlee were home supporters;

* Only 285 ? or two per cent ? of 14,122 Park-only tickets during the second week went to ordinary fans.

In total 10.99m tickets were sold from a total 11.3m available: 8.21m were Olympics tickets and 2.78m were Paralympics tickets. Some 319,000 tickets (263,000 Olympic and 55,000 Paralympic) were unsold, the majority of these being early rounds for Olympic Football.

Just over 76.3 per cent of all Olympic and 91 per cent of all Paralympic tickets were sold through the UK application process against a target of 75pc. This amounted to an unprecedented 8.8m ?tickets sold and raised ?659m for LOCOG?s operating budget.

London Assembly member Stephen Knight said the organisers? ?long-standing secrecy was a clear tactic to cover their tracks in excluding so many ordinary people from a large number of key Olympic events.?

The International Olympic Committee has already identified ticketing allocation and sales as issues needing a major overhaul for future Olympic Games.

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Source: http://keirradnedge.com/2012/12/20/tickets-fears-justified-as-report-says-gb-fans-were-sold-short-by-london-2012/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tickets-fears-justified-as-report-says-gb-fans-were-sold-short-by-london-2012

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