The familiar site of a huge sporting event with empty seats has struck again in Beijing it seems. Many of the lower profile events – despite being completely sold out! – have failed to draw a full crowd.
This is really upsetting for fans, particularly those who have not been able to purchase tickets legitimately, but would love to be in these empty seats. Bob is speaking from experience.
The Beijing organisers have said that they will be hiring “cheerleaders” who cheer for both teams to bolster the atmosphere. What a shame. Good job if you can get it though!
Of course this is not the first (or certainly the last) time that this has happened. Bob was is Japan in 2002 for the Football World Cup, where FIFA made a right royal mess out of the ticketing situation, leaving thousands of travelling fans outside half-empty stadia. (What made it worse in Japan was that not all of the matches were even televised locally, as the competition was so low-key!) And Bob has distinct memories of Raphael Nadal and Novak Djokovic walking onto court at Roland Garros to wage war in a semi-final in front of a fashionably later French crowd.
However BOCOG are not FIFA (thank Buddah!) and the enthusiastic Chinese crowds are far from the moody Parisians. One would be forgiven for expecting a full house for every single event, with the level of excitement that the organisers have whipped up in China.
Some people are blaming corporate ticket allocations – fair enough, it is usually these seats that are empty in Football matches, or at Wimbledon. But speaking as someone who knows a number of people in some of the top Olympic sponsors (sorry, can’t name names) this doesn’t appear to be the case. Even they are finding it hard to get hold of the tickets.
So, it is a mystery. But until it is solved, Bob is off to volunteer as a cheerleader… now where to go, the Bird’s Nest, the velodrome…?
am more interested in the people and by this post am wondering now if people are being repressed and not allowed in events. Interesting
This is bull****. I was in Beijing last week trying everything to get tickets to any event at all. I come home, turn on CCTV, and see games with most of the stands empty! The ticket organizers should have restricted it to one ticket per person in order to allow fairness and prevent c*** like this to happen/
[…] events in Beijing, the Shanghai football matches appear to have a tickets still available from the Stadium, so it is […]
UPDATE
Having been in Beijing for a few days, it appears that (apart from the usual gaps in the corporate sections) most of the empty seats belong to local people who bought tickets in the pre-Olympics rush – no doubt spurred on by all the hype – but have lost interest in the events. As the tickets were not that expensive some people are just not that bothered.
Others are trying to sell their tickets for a tidy profit. Beitucheng metro station, near the Olympic green, is the unofficial designated zone for buying/selling/exchanging. For the big events tickets are going for 10x their face value, but others are a lot cheaper. Sunday afternoon Bob saw a fair number of tickets for the evening’s events, so a last minute bargain is not out of the question.
Most tickets are for football and athletics – due to the size of the stadium these are far more readily available than the cycling for example.
How do you get to be a “cheerleader”. Sounds like a fun job…
Christian Loriau
[…] been made of the scarcity of tickets in Beijing and yet in the first week there was a pandemic of half-empty stadia spreading the city. The government have been publicising their active work to shut down ticket touts and prevent […]
[…] the attention on empty seats and ticket touts it certainly seemed to Bob that most events were well attended by Chinese fans who […]