Organisers admit ticket sales blunder

Embattled Commonwealth Games supremo Suresh Kalmadi on Tuesday blamed empty venues on ticket booths not being set up outside stadiums, but insisted the blunder had been fixed.

The troubled Games kicked off on Monday but they played out in front of hardly any fans, and it was a similar scenario on Tuesday at many places.
Kalmadi, the face of the Games who was booed at the opening ceremony, insisted everything had now been sorted out.

"On spectator galleries being unsold, well some were good, like the swimming, and now it is alright," he said at a press conference also attended by Commonwealth Games Federation president Mike Fennell.

"We have set up in every stadium now ticket box offices.

"There were problems, some of the ticket stalls were not put up, but all the stalls are up now at all the stadiums. The situation has been rectified."

Kalmadi claimed there were big queues for tickets on Monday "up to a mile long" -- it was just that they did not have the booths available to sell them.

"So we don't expect the problem to go on. Tickets will be sold at all venues."
Asked if the poor attendance reflected the shambolic preparations leading up to the Games, he replied: "No, not at all, not at all."

Fennell said he was fully aware of fans not showing up, but said it was being resolved.
"We met this morning and went through a lot of issues," he said.

"There were issues to deal with and we assigned those issues to people to correct and we expect them to be corrected during the course of the day.

"One of the issues causing concern was that it was quite clear yesterday that a number of venues did not have a lot of spectators.

"We are working with the organising committee and they are very conscious of that and how they can be filled."

About two million tickets were put on sale for the multi-sport Games, but rumours have long circulated in New Delhi that the response has been lacklustre amid delays in finalising the sales network.

Kalmadi said 600,000 tickets had been sold, adding that they were looking at bringing in schoolchildren and "the lower level of society" to help fill stadiums.

The slow take-up of tickets could also reflect the absence of major crowd-pulling stars such as Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt or marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe.

The Games had teetered on the brink of collapse last week when some nations threatened to pull out amid worries about security, a bridge falling down, and the standard of accommodation and venues.

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