Organizers of the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games have put thousands of VIP tickets on sale Monday, and Londoners were snapping up seats at the gymnastics and beach volleyball events.
Organizer have begun a process of reclaiming accredited areas that have been unused. They have reduced areas for dignitaries at the equestrian, swimming and handball events and started trimming the accredited areas that were reserved for international federations and media for the gymnastics at the 02 Arena, where a 300-seat section was opened to the public.
Around 3,000 seats trimmed from VIP areas were put on sale to the public overnight and Monday morning. Once the seats are given up, they cannot be returned to VIPs during the Games.
Tickets for seats in the press section at beach volleyball went on sale last night with journalists reportedly moved to make way for spectators. A Locog spokesman called it “a challenge” to manage the issue of empty seats, and selling accredited press seats was one solution.
Meanwhile some of the unoccupied seats were blamed not just on dignitaries, but on the 120,000 unsold tickets allocated to foreign countries. Fifty thousand of these are being held back by agencies hoping to profit from a last minute demand, and the other 70,000 may be thrown out because it is not cost-efficient to return them.
