 Deighton is looking to bring the Olympics to Britain's sports fans |
The chief of the London 2012 organising committee has promised to distribute Olympics tickets to real sports fans and get tough with ticket touts. The Beijing Games were dogged by empty seats and the illegal sale of tickets. Paul Deighton said organisers would be "aggressive about hunting touts down", and sales would be strongly monitored. "If we distribute tickets initially very broadly to real fans that are able to come, it is very hard for someone to get tickets on the secondary market." With the ticket policy to be published in 2010, Deighton was outlining the committee's plans to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport committee on Tuesday. He added: "One of the problems that they had in Beijing was that they distributed the tickets very widely, maybe for political reasons. "So if you were in Mongolia and you got a ticket you stuck it on the wall because you had no chance of getting to Beijing, and they wondered why people did not show up."  | BBC BLOG |
Deighton said talks were being held with the International Olympic Committee about reducing the number of accredited seats for preliminary rounds in an attempt to avoid empty seats. He also revealed that having less tickets covering a whole day's action would help fill the stadiums. "We are going to shorten sessions," he added. "In Beijing they had five-hour beach volleyball sessions. "It was a great event but we will shorten it so it increases the risk of not having the same person in that seat for the entire session." Meanwhile, 76% of the British population believe London will host a successful Olympics in 2012, according to a new nationwide survey. The research also suggests public support for the Games stands at 78% - up 2% on a year ago. Confidence in Britain's athletes is also on the rise with 83% believing Beijing medal haul of 19 golds and fourth place in the medal table will be surpassed in London.
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