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| Soldiers drafted in to watch gymnastics: REUTERS |
Yet more news on those empty seats at the London 2012 Olympics. Stories of armed forces and students being drafted in to fill swathes of empty seating. Almost 300 people saw handball matches by buying cheap tickets at the event — 5 British pounds ($7.87) for adults, 1 pound ($1.57) for children. I also read somewhere that the army were drafted into seats at a Badminton game to make the event look more popular - they must have been hardly able to contain their excitement! According to the Telegraph: "More than 120,000 seats remained empty at London 2012 venues such as the Aquatic centre. Other popular events such as gymnastics, tennis and swimming had swathes of empty seats despite members of the public being told that they were sold out. About 200,000 football tickets remain available.....The greater problem comes from the agencies who handle the sale of the tickets abroad. Up to 70,000 of those tickets could be simply thrown away because it is not cost-efficient for ticket agencies to return them. Another 50,000 premium tickets are being held back by foreign ticket agencies hoping to make a killing by selling them at grossly inflated prices at the last minute. Of the 8.8 million tickets for Games sessions, around 1.2 million go to the national Olympic committees of foreign countries. Most of the Olympics main sponsors denied they had failed to use their allocation."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/9439247/London-2012-Olympics-empty-seats-row-QandA.html
The Guardian Olympics Blog blames all the VIP seating for sponsors and dignitaries who don't show up...and that it was exactly the same in Beijing and will be exactly the same in Rio (i.e. more of an International Olympic Committee problem than a problem specific to London): http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/london-2012-olympics-blog/2012/jul/31/london-2012-empty-vip-seats?newsfeed=true
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| Egypt v New Zealand at Old Trafford, Manchester. (Photo: PA) |
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