Five million orders received for Beijing Games tickets
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
BEIJING, Jul 2 (AFP): Beijing Olympics organisers have received almost five million orders for tickets to 2008 Games events, nearly double the amount on offer in the first phase of sales, a Games spokeswoman said Monday.
The initial phase closed Saturday night with 4.9 million applications received for the roughly 2.7 million tickets being sold in the first batch, said Zhu Jing, a media officer for BOCOG, the Games organising committee.
More applications were expected to trickle in by mail and from banks handling a portion of the sales over the coming days, she said.
Games organisers have been accepting domestic applications since April, and officials have said the opening and closing ceremonies were proving particularly popular.
The Beijing Times newspaper reported Monday that oversubscription would mean applicants had merely a one in 15 chance of landing a seat at one of the ceremonies.
Due to the high demand, a random computerised selection process will be used to allocate the tickets, officials have said previously.
China will eventually sell a total of seven million tickets for Games events, about 75 percent within China and the remaining 25 percent overseas.
The second-phase sales will be conducted on a first-come, first-served basis starting November. Any remaining tickets will be sold off from April next year.
The August 8 opening ceremony will take place at the spectacular National Stadium, known as the "Bird's Nest" because of its intricate design of interlaced steel girders.
The initial phase closed Saturday night with 4.9 million applications received for the roughly 2.7 million tickets being sold in the first batch, said Zhu Jing, a media officer for BOCOG, the Games organising committee.
More applications were expected to trickle in by mail and from banks handling a portion of the sales over the coming days, she said.
Games organisers have been accepting domestic applications since April, and officials have said the opening and closing ceremonies were proving particularly popular.
The Beijing Times newspaper reported Monday that oversubscription would mean applicants had merely a one in 15 chance of landing a seat at one of the ceremonies.
Due to the high demand, a random computerised selection process will be used to allocate the tickets, officials have said previously.
China will eventually sell a total of seven million tickets for Games events, about 75 percent within China and the remaining 25 percent overseas.
The second-phase sales will be conducted on a first-come, first-served basis starting November. Any remaining tickets will be sold off from April next year.
The August 8 opening ceremony will take place at the spectacular National Stadium, known as the "Bird's Nest" because of its intricate design of interlaced steel girders.