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BEIJING—Chinese Olympics organizers acknowledged Tuesday
they were struggling to handle an unforeseen and
baffling problem inside Summer Games venues and at the
showpiece Olympic Park: not enough people.
Two
weeks after announcing they had sold every one of the
record 6.8 million tickets offered for the Games,
Olympics officials expressed dismay at the large numbers
of empty seats at nearly every event and the lack of
pedestrian traffic throughout the park, the 2,800-acre
centerpiece of the competition.
US swimmer Michael Phelps won his third gold medal Tuesday
morning in an arena with at least 500 no-shows, and the
US softball team played in a stadium only about
30-percent full. On Monday 10 of 18 venues did not reach
80-percent capacity, officials said. Meantime, crowds of
tourists and fans have been thin in the extravagantly
landscaped Olympic Park, which holds 10 venues including
the National Stadium.
To
remedy the problem, officials are calling on teams of
state-trained “cheer squads” identifiable by their
bright yellow T-shirts to help fill the empty seats and
improve the atmosphere. They are also encouraging
residents to apply for access to the heavily secured
park.
“We are
concerned about the not-full stadiums,” said Wang Wei,
executive vice president and secretary-general for the
Beijing organizing committee. “Many factors are
contributing to this. We are now trying to manage
that....[As] for the Olympic green...yesterday they saw
not many people inside.”
Officials and observers offered several explanations for
the empty seats. Some speculated that tickets reserved
for sponsors and VIPs might be going unused in
preliminary or qualifying rounds as officials with a
claim to them wait for the finals. Chinese organizers
provided large state-run enterprises with blocks of
tickets, particularly to nonmarquee events, prior to the
Games to distribute to workers. Many of those employees
may simply be deciding it is not worth the hassle to use
them.
Wang
blamed the weather—both the extreme heat and humidity
and the rain showers that washed out some events
Sunday—for keeping many home. He also noted that some
tickets include access to more than one session, which
could encourage the holders to skip the less interesting
events of the day.
Others
said the stricter visa restrictions in place this year
could be keeping foreign ticket-holders away. Across
Beijing, hotels and tourist sites are reporting below
average attendance for August. Many of the foreigners in
Tiananmen Square, under tight security for the Games,
are not individual tourists but part of Olympic
delegations.
“Business is worse than at this time last year,” said a
receptionist at a 22-room hotel in Beijing’s Chongwen
district, where rooms cost $28 a night. “It’s the season
for traveling and last year the hotel was full. The
Olympics should have brought business to Beijing, but
the reality is too far from the expectation.”
Whatever
the cause, the attendance problem has blindsided Chinese
organizers, who expected jammed arenas for even obscure
sports and throngs across the Olympic Park.
The
International Olympic Committee (IOC) encouraged the
Chinese to address the issue. “We’ve been saying,
‘You’re missing a great opportunity to get more of your
people in here to celebrate your games,’” said Kevan
Gosper, vice chairman of the IOC’s coordination
commission for Beijing. “I would want to stress how
important it is for the host city that the venues are
seen to be full and everybody has the opportunity to
enjoy the festivities.”
The
Chinese had hoped masses of cheering fans and Olympic
revelers would help present their country in the best
possible light, as the Games are being televised to an
estimated worldwide audience of more than 4 billion.
Tickets had been in such demand that the release of the
last 250,000 created a scene of havoc when 30,000 people
mobbed Beijing’s ticket center. Officials from other
countries complained they weren’t getting enough tickets
because China offered so many to its own residents.
Though
Opening Ceremonies tickets sold for $645, nearly 60
percent of the tickets cost $13 or less.
Organizers proudly announced the sellout of the Olympic
tickets at the end of July, expecting this Summer Games
would provide a significant and welcome contrast to the
2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. International worries
about terrorism and local disinterest hurt ticket sales
there; organizers sold only about two-thirds of the 5.3
million tickets offered, and many events were poorly
attended.
“We’ve
seen from past Games experience that each host country
and its cultures has differing appreciations for the
various sports which means some venues are packed,
others not so,” Giselle Davies, an IOC spokeswoman, said
in an e-mail. “As regards Beijing, for the venues that
aren’t full, the organizers are working on how to offer
students and others the chance to see and learn about
the sports.”
Venues
across Beijing were dotted Tuesday by the cheerful cheer
squads. At the Fengtai Sports Center Softball Field,
about 200 people sporting yellow shirts with “Cheering
From Beijing Workers” inscribed on them in English and
Mandarin sat in the scorching sun in the outfield
bleachers, which were otherwise largely empty. Covering
their heads with white caps, towels or pieces of
newspaper to stave off the heat, they waved tiny red
flags, red fans and inflatable noisemakers. Several
described themselves as blue-collar workers who had
gotten tickets from their factories or companies and had
been schooled in the art of good cheering.
“Today,
50 workers came to do the cheerleading job,” said Wang
Li, 30, who works for an automobile manufacturer in
Beijing. “Our company sends us to softball today, but
other workers were sent to other venues to do some work.
We come here on shifts.”
Wang
said the workers had been coached. They learned:
“Olympics, Go, Go, Go! China, Go, Go, Go! Beijing, Go,
Go, Go!”
Said
Wang Wei: “The volunteers are assigned to cheer for both
sides in order to provide good atmosphere. ... The
responsibility rests with the ... venue managers. If
they find there are not enough people, too many empty
seats, (they should) organize some cheerleaders.”
The
empty seats have raised the ire of those who spent made
large investments in money and time to secure tickets.
Wu Qifa,
32, a senior digital design engineer, said the
attendance at two weekend field hockey games shrank from
about 60 percent capacity to perhaps 40 percent when
rain swamped the venue. Despite the weather, Wu
expressed frustration at the empty seats given the
lengths she had gone to obtain them.
“When we
wanted tickets, we couldn’t buy them,” Wu said. “My
colleagues tried to buy online but were out of luck. I
tried to line up to buy tickets but it was so impossibly
crowded. ... I think that some tickets for foreign
countries are not sold out. Or some people who bought
the tickets, but could not enter China.”
Meng
Xianan, 28, a paralegal from Beijing, bought her ticket
for men’s gymnastics online last year. But her seat for
the preliminaries on Saturday was in the last row of the
National Indoor Stadium.
“There
were quite a lot empty seats in front of me,” Meng said.
“I suspect the empty seats are free tickets. It’s
unfair. As soon as I saw the empty seats, I was
annoyed.”
Added
Meng: “I’m going to watch diving in several days. The
tickets are from my boyfriend’s company, which is one of
the sponsors. From what I understand, they couldn’t give
all their tickets away last weekend. What a waste.”
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