Seats from £20 for London 2012 Olympics

The highest-priced ticket for any event will be the 2,012 that organisers are confident some spectators will pay to be at the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium.

The lowest price for the same event will be 20.12 but seats priced at 1,600, 995 and 150 will also be available.

The closing ceremony will command a highest price of 1,500 going down to 20.12, with 995, 655 and 150 seats also on sale.

London 2012 chairman Lord Coe yesterday described the policy behind the wide-ranging pricing structure as an effort to make the tickets "affordable and accessible to as many people as possible".

The organisers, who need to get 25 per cent of revenue from ticket sales, said that by charging high prices for the key contests and ceremonies they can afford to sell much cheaper tickets for the same events.

The number of tickets for the 26 Olympic sports has increased from 8 million to 8.8 million, London 2012 also confirmed.

About 75 per cent of them will be available to the public, and will go on sale in March.

The prices of two million tickets for the Paralympics will be announced later.

More capacity has been found by the London 2012 organisers as they start to plot in detail the exact positions needed by broadcasters and the equipment needed to run an event or ceremony.

The aim is to have full stadia, to make millions of tickets affordable and accessible over a wide range of prices and to get young people involved, according to Lord Coe.

He said: "We have three clear principles for our ticketing strategy – tickets need to be affordable and accessible to as many people as possible. Tickets are an important revenue stream for us to fund the Games and our ticketing plans have the clear aim of filling our venues to the rafters.

"When we won the right to stage the Games, we made a promise to inspire young people to choose sport and our ticket prices will get as many young people as possible to the Games."

Sports fans will find that 90 per cent of the tickets will cost 100 or less, two-thirds of tickets will be 50 or less and 2.5 million will cost 20 or less.

Approximately 1.3 million tickets will come under a promotion which aims to get both young and old into the stands. Anyone who is 16 or under at the start of the Games, on July 27, 2012 will pay their age in pounds. If they are 60 or older by the same date they pay a flat 16.

Each sport session will have tickets at different prices. Key factors will be whether the event is a heat, preliminary or a final and whether it is a popular sport.

Efforts will be made so there is an equal spread of tickets at each price across the different sports.

The early rounds of the athletics will have prices ranging from 20 to 150.

Tickets for the football, taking place at venues including the City of Coventry Stadium, Hampden Park, the Millennium Stadium, Old Trafford, St James' Park and Wembley Stadium, will start at 20 for the preliminaries.

Tennis fans can get outer court tickets at Wimbledon for the preliminaries and quarter-finals for 20. The centre court finals will cost from 65 to 225.