LOCOG Clarify Number of Tickets Left for London ’12 with 1m Missing Out

BBC London claims to have learnt that over half of the applicants for London 2012 Olympic Games tickets did not receive any in the ballot, with around 55 per cent believed to have missed out.

Almost 1 million of the original 1.8 million people applying for 6.6 million available tickets to the public will now enter a second ballot for those who were unsuccessful, though no tickets remain for the opening and closing ceremonies or athletics finals.

London 2012 said those who missed out will have priority in the next ballot but BBC London’s Olympics correspondent Adrian Warner said the big events had sold out as well as cheaper events like BMX and archery.

He said: “Even though people will be entered into a second ballot, the cheaper tickets have gone. So, for example, if you do want to watch track and field it will be the preliminaries and it will cost between £40, which is double the cheapest available, and £150.”

A London 2012 spokesman added: “Those who were unsuccessful in the initial process will have priority in the next round of sales which start later this month and they will be contacted soon to inform them about the next steps.

“There are still plenty of tickets available to see great Olympic sport across all price points.”

Paul Deighton, chief executive of London 2012, told BBC London that he understood the disappointment of Londoners and that London 2012 was working as hard as possible to make tickets in the second round available to as many people as possible, adding: “The objective of the second round is that it is exclusively for those that participated in the first round.

“We want to make sure that people who were disappointed first time around have the best chance of getting tickets.”

Deighton admitted: “The biggest chunk of tickets are in the team sports where we have lots of matches, big venues, so it’s with volleyball, hockey, tennis, basketball, handball.”

After LOCOG chairman Lord Coe suggested only around 100,000 seats will be put on sale, organisers have moved to clarify the number of tickets available in the second phase of sales.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Coe said the seats would be made available to the one million people who missed out in the initial ballot on a first come, first served basis on or before 24 June.

However, a LOCOG spokesperson said the number of tickets available would actually be “hundreds of thousands”, and said a full breakdown of seats and events would soon be made available.

Coe later said he was unaware that he had made a mistake over the numbers, claiming: “I did say hundreds of thousands of tickets, I couldn’t be clearer about that. I’ve been repeating the same thing four or five times. Let there be no ambiguity about this. Hundreds of thousands of tickets at [different] price points [will be sold] in the second phase.”