The tickets are all sold, but the venues are not full
Friday, 15th August 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Plenty of open seats in Wukesong Arena at the China-Angola men's basketball game
I am talking about empty seats—big swaths of blue, red or grey in arenas and gymnasiums. I saw more again as I watched the opening games of the beach volleyball tournament, and when I attended Olympic tennis, beach volleyball and basketball.
Before Memphis played its second game against the Chinese national team in Yangjiang this spring, assistant coach Rod Strickland looked up at the stands an hour before game time and wondered, "Will they fill it up?"
"This is China," I assured him. "They can fill up any venue they want to." But when the game tipped off, the crowd in that gym was below capacity. Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian and Wang Zhizhi were all out of action, but in a city of 2.6 million people, precious few of whom will have the chance to see Team China in action in Beijing, each one of the 4,000 seats should have been taken. And how can you explain empty chairs at the recent basketball games, featuring China at full strength and starring NBA players who have millions of fans here?
Much has been made of the tickets to these Olympics being sold out, thanks in large part to the large number of affordable tickets being made available domestically. But I wonder if that actually means that the venues will host capacity crowds. When I waited in lines in ticketing phases 3 and 4, I met more than a few people who were waiting in line for their bosses, who wanted tickets to give away to clients. I always found more of these ticket buyers near the front of the line—on the clock and under the gun, they seemed more likely to arrive extremely early.
So what happens when the boss gives a pair of tickets to a fencing preliminary to a client who decides that seeing the event is not worth the time she would need to spend out of the office? What happens when he gives tickets to a client in Sichuan, who decides he can't afford the flight to Beijing and the hotel stay?
This is just one of the many ways that sold out tickets can be prevented from turning into packed gymnasiums. I don't doubt that there are enough sports fans in Beijing to fill all of the Olympic venues—I have gotten calls and messages from Chinese friends desperately seeking a way to buy tickets to taekwondo, basketball and swimming. I had to explain to them that many of my tickets were bought in the United States from people who discovered at the last minute that they couldn't come... visa restrictions, maybe?
I have a feeling that we will see more empty seats than many people expect. If my experience is any indication, something is getting in the way of getting tickets in the hands of people who can actually attend the games.
Related: Washington Post on attendance problems
Tags: basketball, beach volleyball, Beijing Olympics, Olympic ticketing, swimming, tennis
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