BOCOG official reiterates scalping unlawful in China
12/8/2008 17:05
A Beijing Olympics official said in Beijing today that scalping is
prohibited by the Chinese law and the organizing committee of the Beijing
Olympic Games has adopted a series of measures to fight scalping.
Wang Wei,
vice executive president and secretary general of the Beijing Organizing
Committee of the 29th Olympic Games (BOCOG), said at a press conference that to
fight scalping, the BOCOG has adopted many measures, including the real name
policy for buying tickets of the opening and closing ceremonies.
"And for
competition events, we have quotas for each person who buy tickets," Wang
said.
"Scalping is prohibited by the Chinese law. Since the test events, we
have implemented fixed measures to prevent scalping, and have deployed more
people to implement our anti-scalping measures," Wang made the remarks when
being asked if there were scalping accidents during the Olympic Games.
Wang
also briefed journalists on the attendance rate in venues, saying that on Aug.
11, there were 20 competition events at 18 venues. Two of the 18 venues in
Beijing had an attendance rate of over 90 percent, six over 80 percent and eight
over 70 percent, while the remaining two over 60 percent.
Being asked why
there were still some empty seats on the stands since the organizing committee
claimed that all the tickets had been sold out, Wang gave several
reasons.
The not-too-full stadium is partially due to the rainy, humid and
hot weather in previous days. And there were always not many spectators showing
up in preliminaries, according to the experience of the previous Olympic Games.
As time goes on, "we will get more spectators in the stadium," Wang
said.
"The tickets are all sold out, that is right," Wang reiterated.
"We
do have some reserved seats for the Olympic families. For the preliminaries,
some people might not show up, and that is understandable. And for competitions
like beach volleyball and basketball, we have one ticket for the whole morning,
whole afternoon or whole evening, but spectators might only choose one of
several matches of the time period to watch," Wang further explained.
Being
asked if the organizing committee employed chearleaders at venues to fill the
empty seats, Wang said, "The responsibility rests with the local authorities and
venue managers. If they find that there are too many empty seats, they will
organize some cheerleaders who are volunteers."
If spectators come for the
seats, the chearleaders will stand up and leave, letting the ticket holders have
their seats, said Wang.
Xinhua
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