Beijing Revises Ticketing System

Pressure from sponsors has persuaded the Beijing Olympics organising committee to revise the ticketing system for the Olympic Green corporate hospitality area, allowing more people in.

Several sponsors, including McDonald’s and Johnson & Johnson, were disappointed by the number of visitors to the Olympic Green, a huge space around the Bird’s Nest Stadium dedicated to sponsor guests.

The Beijing Games organising committee has now introduced a new ticketing system and the number of visitors to the Green is expected to climb from 40,000 at the beginning of last week to 200,000.

The low numbers were partly due to the fact that the track and field events to be staged in the Birds Nest stadium only started last Friday but sponsors were still perturbed at the entry system for the areas.

The organising committee is still facing criticism about the number of empty seats at Olympic events after admitting it had used uniformed volunteers to flesh out the crowds.

Many of the international media have attributed the ticketing issues to the Communist government’s reluctance to see large uncontrolled crowds.