Beijing tickets hard to find

BEIJING – Unprecedented demand for tickets to the 2008 Beijing Olympics means many who want to go won’t be able to.

From Denmark to Germany to the United States the problem is the same, with national Olympic committees complaining to Beijing organizers that ticket allocations were about half of what they expected.

Even the families and friends of competitors may have to stay at home.

“For certain sports it is almost impossible to get any tickets at all,” said Jesper Larsen, head of International Affairs for the Danish Olympic Committee. “Almost every NOC has experienced that the number of tickets they got allocated was much lower than what they were asking for.”

The fierce demand is another measure of how Beijing is overshadowing any previous games: glittering new venues, a $40 billion remake of the city’s infrastructure and record amounts being spent on advertising and sponsorship rights.

Beijing organizers said in April that 75 percent of the 7.2 million tickets on sale would be for domestic consumption with 25 percent for sale outside mainland China. Overall, the Beijing Games will generate about 9 million tickets.

However, on Friday in a statement to the Associated Press, officials said the domestic allocation was down to 50 percent, with more tickets going abroad.

The move comes after a barrage of complaints, followed by a showdown three weeks ago in Valencia, Spain, at a meeting of Europe’s 50 national Olympic committees.

In Valencia, Zhao Huimin, director of international relations for Beijing’s Olympic organizing committee, said the problem came from the “great gap” between supply and demand.

BOCOG said the NOCs would now be allocated 1 million tickets – about 14 percent of all tickets for sale. BOCOG said the comparable figure for Athens was 570,000.

“As 2008 approaches, the interest in the Beijing Olympics from the world has far exceeded the interest in the Greek Olympics,” the statement said.

Domestic demand is also unprecedented. China’s domestic ticketing system crashed when 1.8 million tickets went on sale in the second phase in late October, overwhelmed by 8 million hits in the first hour.