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Beijing Olympic events sold out
Last Updated: Monday, July 28, 2008 | 1:46 PM ET
Beijing is on its way to being the first Olympic Games to sell out after organizers announced Monday that all tickets for events in the city itself had been sold.
There are still tickets available for events held at venues outside of Beijing, including batches for preliminary round soccer matches in the cities of Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.
However, Li Dan, an official with the organizers' ticketing centre, said he expects those remaining tickets will also all be sold.
"We're still counting the number of remaining tickets, and it's hard to say when they'll be sold out."
Although all tickets have been sold, many went to sponsors and Olympic committees of countries participating in the Games, which might result in empty seats at some events.
A final 250,000 tickets were released Friday, prompting 30,000 people who had been in line for up to two days to swarm a ticket centre. Police avoided a stampede by using metal barricades and shoving and kicking people in the crowd.
Organizers had to adopt a lottery system for ticket sales in November after overwhelming volume crashed the computerized system.
The demand for tickets in Beijing has surpassed that of Athens, where only about two-thirds of the 5.3 million available tickets were sold, leaving many empty seats at events
Last Updated: Monday, July 28, 2008 | 1:46 PM ET
Beijing is on its way to being the first Olympic Games to sell out after organizers announced Monday that all tickets for events in the city itself had been sold.
There are still tickets available for events held at venues outside of Beijing, including batches for preliminary round soccer matches in the cities of Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.
However, Li Dan, an official with the organizers' ticketing centre, said he expects those remaining tickets will also all be sold.
"We're still counting the number of remaining tickets, and it's hard to say when they'll be sold out."
Although all tickets have been sold, many went to sponsors and Olympic committees of countries participating in the Games, which might result in empty seats at some events.
A final 250,000 tickets were released Friday, prompting 30,000 people who had been in line for up to two days to swarm a ticket centre. Police avoided a stampede by using metal barricades and shoving and kicking people in the crowd.
Organizers had to adopt a lottery system for ticket sales in November after overwhelming volume crashed the computerized system.
The demand for tickets in Beijing has surpassed that of Athens, where only about two-thirds of the 5.3 million available tickets were sold, leaving many empty seats at events
