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ORGANISERS of the Singapore Youth Olympic Games (YOG) have moved to correct a ticketing problem that has seen scores of empty seats at the Games - although tickets have been sold out.
From today, seats unoccupied at any of the 18 competition venues across the island will be released to the public.
The move, which comes at the halfway stage of the Aug 14-26 event, is in response to complaints from those who have been unable to purchase tickets despite the unfilled stadiums.
This was especially evident for some of the sports like tennis, hockey and badminton.
Some fans have linked this to the fact that some spectators - especially students given tickets from the Ministry of Education's bulk purchase of 80,000 passes - do not stay for the duration of the sessions, which can last up to seven hours.
A total of 320,000 tickets have been made available for the public to catch the 26 sports on offer. Tickets cost between $10 and $30.
Acknowledging the problem of unoccupied seats, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan said yesterday: 'What I have been receiving now is many appeals, through e-mail, phone calls and SMS, that, 'I want to get into this particular event, I can't get tickets, what can I do?'
'What we realise is that although all the tickets are sold, some people come late or they leave early.'
This being the case, venue managers at the sites - such as the Singapore Indoor Stadium (badminton), Kallang Tennis Centre and Bishan Stadium (athletics) - have been instructed to resell tickets to walk-in fans if seats are still unoccupied once a session has started.
Also, the gallery section at Jalan Besar Stadium will be open from today, in time for Singapore's vital football match against Montenegro.
The section, which seats roughly 2,000, was closed for earlier matches because organisers felt they could not fill the seats.
'But I need to emphasise that I cannot guarantee entry for people who come in at the last minute,' Dr Balakrishnan said on the sidelines of yesterday's swimming competition at the Singapore Sports School.
'But if at all possible, there is a spare seat, we will make it available to you. I want to ensure that every single seat is filled and that all our athletes get the support that they so richly deserve.'
But this could mean two ticket holders for one seat. But for those who buy tickets early and arrive late, Dr Balakrishnan promised that organisers would do their best to find a seat for them.
'Even if it means kicking someone like myself or the officials out of the official seat...we will do so,' he said.
At least one school has acted to offer excess tickets to parents of students at $10 each for a number of YOG events. Parents of students in Bukit Timah Primary can obtain the tickets directly from the school.
In the past few days, several sports fans have written to The Straits Times Forum page after having been turned away at venues because tickets were 'sold out'.
Mr Leong Soon Hong, who took time off from work on Monday to watch badminton at the 5,000-seat Singapore Indoor Stadium (SIS), was told by staff that there were no tickets available. He managed to get a spare ticket from a friend, and once inside, was dismayed to see that many seats were unoccupied.
He said: 'I was at SIS for at least six hours, and the majority of the spectators were schoolchildren. Most left with their teachers within two hours.'
Checks by The Straits Times yesterday at locations such as the Sengkang Hockey Stadium and Kallang Tennis Centre showed that while tickets were unavailable at the site, online and through the YOG's ticketing hotline, many seats were indeed empty.
This was a turn-off for Canadian Satya Chaube and his two children, who waited four hours in the hope that they would get tickets into the Sengkang venue.
Said Mr Chaube, 40, who stood outside the fenced exterior with his family to watch Australia take on Ghana: 'I am disappointed that they didn't allow us inside.'
Schools whose students left YOG sessions early cite time constraints as a reason.
Explained North Vista Secondary's head of the department of humanities Julia Edison: 'We have to take into consideration the concerns of parents, as well as arranging transport for our students.'
This is especially important for sports that begin in the late afternoon, she said: 'They might have to stay past dinner, and we have to think about their meals.'
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_568256.html
Empty seats are reserved for our "good brothers".
it's really contradictory......tickets sold out but empty seats aplenty?
These are the possibilities:
1) Since MOE bought most of the tickets, not all schools made a "compulsory invitation" to their students
2) Near the start of YOG, SYOGOC realised that seat sales are so terrible that they start giving out many of these tickets to the civil service but as they are adults, there's no issue of "compulsory invitation"
3) Kids cannot attend the whole day events, so they just come and go very quickly
4) It's a cook up by the media to show that YOG is in hot demand, that's why no tickets available. And now they offer to give these "seats" out
5) Seats are really in hot demand
haha which one do you think applies?