Ticket sales for the 2008 Olympic Games have received an overwhelming response. Some events, including the opening and closing ceremonies are already over-subscribed.

Rong Jun, head of the Beijing Olympic Ticketing Center, said, ‘With just 10 days until the first phase of sales ends, we have received 360,000 orders for more than 2.2 million tickets. The opening and closing ceremonies were extremely over-subscribed and a random computerized selection process will be used to allocate the tickets.’ He said it was difficult to predict the odds because more orders are expected in the coming ten days.

Tickets to a dozen of sports including badminton, table tennis, swimming, diving, gymnastics and basketball are also very much in demand.

Rong Jun said, ‘On the whole, we are very satisfied with the situation. After all, Chinese people are not used to buying tickets more than a year in advance.’

In the first phase of ticket sales, people can wait until June 30 to place their orders and tickets will be assigned between July and August. The second leg of domestic sales will start in October and run through December.
Source: China Daily