300,000 people across China have become the first group to get tickets for the 2008 Olympic Games. Organizers have released the outcome of allocation for the first round of booking.

The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOCOG) said that a total of 1,593,345 tickets would be allocated to over 300,000 people and that all the 26,000 tickets to the opening ceremony had been sold out, with only one winner for every 21 applications.

Basketball, diving, table tennis, football and gymnastics were the top five high-demanding sports events and 34.6% of the applicants would be allocated tickets for the sports events. For the closing ceremony, 15.1% of the 172,219 applicants were lucky enough to get a ticket.

The first round of ticket sales started in mid April and ended by June 30. During this period, the Beijing Olympic ticketing center received more than 720,000 applications, requesting for 5.18 million tickets. Due to higher demand for some tickets, 72% of the 2.2 million tickets available to the public during the first phase were sold.

Rong Jun, head of the Olympic ticketing center, said that for oversubscribed events, a random computerized selection process was used to ensure the fairness of allocation. He said, ‘The process was totally transparent and fair.’

The second stage of the tickets selling will start from October with the principal of ‘first come, first served’. People can book tickets through a hotline, the official ticketing website and Bank of China branches.

About seven million tickets are put on sale to the public for the 2008 Games, with over 70% reserved for domestic sales. Prices range from RMB30 ($3.97) to RMB5,000 ($660).
Source: People’s Daily Online