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400,000 extra tickets to be sold to fill empty stadiums

: 0 Comments Print E-mail shanghaidaily, November 16, 2010

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Asian Games organizers are trying to solve the problem of empty stadiums by printing an additional 400,000 tickets to go on sale to the public.

Olympic Council of Asian President Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah admitted yesterday he was concerned that some stadiums were almost empty on the first two days of competition but there were no tickets for sale because they'd been distributed.

Guangzhou officials appeared to be having problems similar to those experienced by New Delhi organizers of last month's Commonwealth Games, when thousands of tickets set aside for or sent to corporate sponsors were not used.

That resulted in half-empty stadiums and ticket booths outside venues closed because the tickets were officially sold out.

"The gap between expectations and reality is surprising," Asian Cricket Council media manager Shahriar Khan said. Despite claims by organizers that all the tickets were sold out, only about 500 people turned up to watch when the Chinese women played the opening match against Malaysia over the weekend.

"There's no way one could buy a ticket online," Khan said, adding that a cricket official from Hong Kong was interested in buying a ticket but couldn't "because the website showed it sold out."

At women's beach volleyball yesterday, fewer than 300 people attended a China-Kazakhstan game even though the official stats sheet listed attendance of 1,400. Out of more than a dozen spectators interviewed, all had either received their tickets for free or bought them from scalpers.

"It was really out of the ordinary for them to give us these tickets," said 21-year-old Wan Shaoxin, who got them from his company, which makes the large audio speakers being used at Asian Games events.

Sheikh Ahmad said a dozen tickets booths would be placed in public areas and promoted across this sprawling city of 10 million people. "I'm confident they'll be sold and we'll get people filling stadiums," he said. "I'm confident because the people who want to come, they'll come and buy the tickets and then they will definitely want to use them."