Getting annoyed by empty seats at Olympics

[Nevercan]

Have watched the swimming and gymnastics tonight and there are loads of empty seats at the front and I couldn't get tickets - how annoying and such a shame as they are good seats..... Pity they can't sell them again last minute don't you think?

So apparently they are going to offer the empty seats to the military personnel now - that's something - but why oh why don't they allow a standby line?

Too many people would love those tickets, and I think it's great to let the military have the seats - but seriously, so would many many fans who hover outside, family of competitors who missed out on tickets etc.

As for the corporate sponsors, they are a bunch of bastards for not making people go and fill the seats.

The official explanation has ben that it is not corporate sponsors' tickets that have been going unused, and indeed there is a growing list of them (including one specifically named on this thread) denying any of their tickets are unallocated/unused they obvious cannot guarantee every individual recipient has turned up).

It looks as if it is media and "Olympic family" (ie various international sporting organisations and delegates) who are not using their tickets.

They need to notify LOCOG properly if they are not going use the tickets. You can't just have a 'half an hour late an we resell your ticket" policy as individual travel delays could account for that, as could one security alert etc.

There are already facilities in The Park to resell tickets (eg from early leavers, as at Wimbledon). If tickets were properly surrendered by those who had decided not to attend at all, it would be straightforward to put them into that system.

I thought corporate sponsers WERE part of Olympic Family? What's what online definitions say, "sponsors".

I know a 20yo who is part of the National Youth Theatre who is spending 4 weeks performing inside the park FOR FREE, none of his expenses covered, and no perks other than saying he passed the auditions to get there. There must be heaps of people like him, who should be allowed in the venues if there are vast numbers of vast shows.

They are listed separately in all the accounts I've seen. This is how BBC describes allocations;

Sale to public: 75%
Via National Olympic committees: 12%
Sponsors: 8%
Via IOC: 5%

So that "Olympic family" gets twice as many as sponsors.