Olympics ticket deadline extended after China quake

Olympics ticket deadline extended after China quake

source:courtesy: * Reuters
* , Thursday May 15 2008

BEIJING, May 15 (Reuters) - Subscribers who bought tickets for the Beijing Olympics in the third round of domestic sales will have an extra 10 days to pay after Monday's earthquake in southwest China killed thousands, Games organisers said.
Buyers were due to pay by last Tuesday but now had until May 23 after China's worst earthquake in three decades prevented some people from paying, China's Olympic Ticketing Centre announced in a statement.
The online booking system would continue service until the planned end of the third phase domestic sale on June 9, it added, despite the fact that tickets to events in Beijing and Hong Kong had already sold out.
The third round of domestic sales started with 1.38 million tickets up for grabs on May 5. A total of 7 million tickets will be made available to the general public for the Aug. 8-24 Games.
(Take a look at the Countdown to Beijing blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)
(Reporting by Liu Zhen; Editing by Nick Macfie)

China Olympics tickets sold out

China Olympics tickets sold out


Chinese woman smiles as she holds up her Olympic tickets
Millions of Chinese have bought tickets for the games

The organisers of this year's Olympic Games in China say domestic tickets for events in Beijing and Hong Kong have sold out, state-run media outlets say.

Queues formed at branches of the Bank of China when the third and final batch of tickets went on sale on Monday.

China allocated about three-quarters of the seven million Olympic tickets to its domestic audience.

The rest are being sold overseas through each country's national Olympic Committee.

A total of 1.38 million tickets for 16 sports, including boxing, football, volleyball and basketball, were put on sale both at Bank of China outlets and on the official website.

Tickets for the soccer tournament in co-host cities Shanghai, Shenyang, Tianjin and Qinhuangdao, as well as tickets for equestrian events in Hong Kong, are still available, Xinhua news agency said.

Online sales ran into problems on Monday, despite guarantees that the system had been repaired after earlier glitches led to the dismissal of the ticket centre's director last year.

Buyers complained on blogs and internet chat rooms of being unable to complete purchases, despite being able to log on to the website and select tickets fairly smoothly.