London 2012 organizers offer hope to ticketless fans
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Shanghai Daily, June 27, 2011
London Olympic organizers put 'sold out' signs over a swathe of sports yesterday with only tickets for soccer, volleyball and greco-roman and freestyle wrestling still available in a second round of sales in Britain.
A spokeswoman said more than 130,000 people who had failed to secure tickets in a hugely oversubscribed first ballot were allocated seats in the 'first come first served' offering that started on Friday.
Most of them were notified by email yesterday.
However some 15,000 people again missed out, having successfully submitted online applications only to discover that the website could not keep up with demand.
Organizers LOCOG promised them a further opportunity when a million more tickets are released next year.
"Over 130,000 more people will now have tickets to the Games following the first day of the 'second chance sale' on Friday," said LOCOG chairman Sebastian Coe.
"We know there is still some disappointment from those who were not successful in their requests but we will continue do everything we can to get them to the Games.
"Over a million new tickets will be offered to the British public next year from contingency seats, once venues are tested and licensed, and we aim to get as many of these tickets as possible into the hands of customers who have missed out to date."
Of some 150,000 applications for around 850,000 tickets processed by organizers since Friday, when the official website buckled under demand in the opening minutes, just under 90 percent were successful subject to payment.
Ten of the 24 sports with tickets available at the start of the process sold out in the first two hours and some within 15 minutes.
Eighteen of them were sold out by Friday evening, followed by boxing and weightlifting on Saturday.
Demand had massively exceeded supply in popular sports in the initial ballot in March and April with more than two million requests for the opening ceremony and more than a million for the men's athletics 100 metres final.
Some 2.3 million tickets were available in the second round, 1.7 million of them for men's and women's soccer matches which will also be played at venues far from London such as Manchester's Old Trafford and Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.
The 'second chance' ticket offering lasts until July 17.
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