Tickets transparency 'unreasonable'

[divingbrit]

Olympics minister Hugh Robertson has described demands for immediate transparency over sales of tickets for the London 2012 Games as 'unreasonable'.

Robertson, speaking on the second day of the Track World Cup cycling event at the Olympic Velodrome, expressed surprise at the London Assembly's demand to lift a perceived secrecy over the sale of tickets for the Olympics, which open on July 27.

The Assembly have criticised the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games for refusing to provide a detailed breakdown of how many tickets have been sold, for what price and for which events.

However, Robertson believes the time for transparency is once the ticketing process is complete.

'There is no pressure from the Government whatsoever on LOCOG to release that allocation beforehand,' Robertson said. 'I think it's unreasonable to ask. This is the middle of a very big, complicated ticketing operation - they're trying to market tickets for 26 simultaneous World Championships in one day.

'It's an operation that has never, ever been done before. We have said right from the beginning that we will publish a full breakdown of tickets after the process.

'At the moment there's another round of tickets to go. What we're all concentrating on is getting that right, getting those tickets out into the market place, completing the ticketing operation.

'That is important, not only for the running of the Games, but also because it's such an important part of the revenue that goes into the LOCOG budget.

'I want to make sure, and indeed the organising committee want to make sure, that that operation is completed successfully before we get onto the whole transparency of where it's gone. There is a time for that, but it is not now.'

However, Robertson revealed details about the 8.8million Olympic and 2million Paralympic tickets available to the public could be released before the Games.

He added: 'As soon as the ticketing process is over - and I suspect that will be by June, July time - then we will be in a position to give a breakdown. Clearly at the moment the key thing is to complete the commercial revenue raising operation by getting those remaining tickets out there.'

Daily Mail