Tickets re-sold in bid to tackle problem of empty seats at venues

The move came after the sights of swathes of empty seats at events in the first days of the Games prompted anger from people who had struggled to get tickets.

London 2012 chairman Lord Coe had promised to urge international federations to make sure they used areas reserved for them to avoid embarrassment.

Jackie Brock-Doyle, Locog’s director of communications, said they had been able to get back 3,000 and re-sell them – a move they will do each day to make sure as many seats as possible are filled.

“We talked to the International Federations yesterday. We were able to put back into the pot for sale around 3,000 tickets last night and they have all been sold,” she said. We’re going to do that on a day-to-day basis.”

She said they were talking to accredited groups, including broadcast media and seeing if they could release some tickets.

“Where we can we are going to release those the night before and put them up for sale.”

Ms Brock-Doyle said the number of seats given up depended on the sport, and in some situations also depended on security arrangements, but in those cases they had contingency plans involving giving seats to troops or students and teachers.

“Everybody is giving up what they can and it is session by session so some sessions, for example of beach volleyball, we have had returns of probably about 300-400 this morning, but for the evening sessions and the afternoon sessions it’s less.”

Asked if they had “got it wrong”, she said: “We are trying everything we can to make sure that those accredited seats are filled where we can.

“There are operational issues that make it difficult to fill some of those seats, which is why we are making them available to the troops and to the teachers and the children. We really are doing the best 
we can, but it’s not an exact science.”

Shadow Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, who held the post in 2005 when Britain won the right to hold the Games, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “We’ve got to get people into those seats today, tomorrow and the next day.

“I think the measures Seb Coe announced yesterday go quite a long way into that, together with the recycling of tickets for people who are already in the park.”

Downing Street said the empty seats were “disappointing” but it was a matter for Locog.

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