AFP reports that cheerleading volunteers wearing yellow T-shirts have been shipped to Olympic venues to fill up the empty seats and liven up the atmosphere, Games organizers said Tuesday.
Organizers have reportedly been struggling to keep venues for some preliminary rounds full even though all tickets have been sold. Wang Wei, Vice President of the Beijing organizing committee said, “I think they are volunteers who are on cheer squads to cheer both sides of the competition in order to create a good atmosphere. The individual venues can call for the volunteers to fill in the seats if they were needed. “If they find that there are not enough people or if they find too many empty seats, they will organize some cheerleaders who are volunteers”, he said.
Wang has said that the combination of bad weather and a large number of unused sponsor tickets has caused the problem. “I think we are also concerned about this”, he said, adding that all tickets to the Games had been sold.
He said that tickets had been made available for the Olympic family, which includes athletes and sponsors, and some of these were not being used.
