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BEIJING 2008: Ticket crunch hits the Beijing Olympics

Unprecedented demand for tickets to next year's Beijing Olympics means many who want to go will not be able to.

From Denmark to Germany to the US the problem is the same, with national Olympic committees (NOC) complaining to the Beijing organizers that ticket allocations were about half of what they expected.

Even the families and friends of competitors may be forced to stay at home.

"For certain sports it is almost impossible to get any tickets at all," said Jesper Larsen, head of International Affairs for the Danish Olympic Committee. "Almost every NOC has experienced that the number of tickets they got allocated was much lower than what they were asking for."

The fierce demand is another measure of how Beijing is overshadowing any previous games -- glittering new venues, a US$40 billion remake of the city's infrastructure and record amounts being spent on advertising and sponsorship rights.

Beijing organizers said in April that 75 percent of the 7.2 million tickets on sale would be for domestic consumption with 25 percent for sale outside China. Overall, the Beijing Games will sell about 9 million tickets.

However, on Friday in a statement, officials said the domestic allocation was now down to 50 percent, with more tickets going abroad.

The move comes after a barrage of complaints, followed by a showdown three weeks ago in Valencia, Spain, at a meeting of Europe's 50 NOCs. Beijing officials were grilled about the ticket shortage and one NOC official, who asked not to be named, said "recent Olympic games have never faced such a big ticketing problem as Beijing."

In Valencia, Zhao Huimin, the Beijing organizing committee's (BOCOG) director of international relations, said the problem came from the "great gap" between supply and demand.

Another high-ranking BOCOG official acknowledged this week in off-the-record comments that even personal ticket requests for family and friends of competitors would be tough to fill.

In the statement BOCOG said the NOC's would now be allocated 1 million tickets -- about 14 percent of all tickets for sale. BOCOG said the comparable figure for Athens was 570,000.

"As 2008 approaches, the interest in the Beijing Olympics from the world has far exceeded the interest in the Greek Olympics," the statement said.

BOCOG said 53 more NOCs are seeking tickets than did in Athens. Organizers say demand is focused on "hot events" like swimming, gymnastics, basketball and track and field.

"The ticketing work is always the most sensitive among preparations for the Olympics," BOCOG said.

Domestic demand is also unprecedented. China's domestic ticketing system crashed when 1.8 million tickets went on sale in the second phase in late October.

The embarrassed organizers scrapped the computer, reverted to a lottery system and demoted the head of ticketing, Rong Jun.
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