Government spends £750,000 on Olympic tickets for its staff

The Government has spent nearly £750,000 on tickets for the London 2012 Games.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has been allocated 8,815 tickets, including 213 for the opening ceremony. These alone cost £194,525.

They include 41 of the top-priced opening ceremony tickets costing £2,012.12.

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They have also paid out £71,490 for 143 tickets for the closing ceremony, according to the figures revealed in a Freedom of Information request by Sky News.

Thousands of members of the public were angered by the ticket sales which left them empty-handed amid the rapid sell-outs for events such as the opening and closing ceremonies, the cycling, athletics and aquatics events.

Almost two thirds of the 1.9 million people who applied in the six-week first round of Olympic sales ended up empty-handed. A total of 1.2 million people ended up with nothing, with only 700,000 – 36 per cent – being successful.

The DCMS put bids in for tickets for all the Government and, it is believed, its allocation will be shared out across government departments.

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Many dignitaries, heads of state and business leaders across the world will fill some of the best seats at the opening and closing ceremonies which will be used as a showcase for Britain.

Sought-after tickets for track cycling, with a total of 224 tickets to the Olympic Park velodrome sessions, are among the DCMS allocation.

The tickets include the sprint and keirin finals in which Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton are hoping to take part. They spent £29,530 on diving tickets, including Tom Daley’s 10-metre synchro and 10-metre platform event.

The department has spent £33,085 on 257 athletics tickets and £26,600 on 411 beach volleyball tickets.

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A DCMS spokesman said: “The Government has purchased 8,815 tickets for the Games – around 0.1 per cent of the 8.8 million tickets available. There will be no free tickets for civil servants, and no tickets at all for the opening and closing ceremonies.”