Coe vows to fill seats
Sebastian Coe said troops and students would be given empty seats but claimed most were full.
Last Updated: 29/07/12 4:42pm
London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe said troops and students would be given the empty seats at a number of Olympics venues but claimed most venues were full.
Gaps were visible at a number of venues today and yesterday, including the Aquatics Centre, gymnastics and beach volleyball - other venues such as rowing, boxing, shooting and handball were full.
Coe said students, teachers and troops had been given some of the empty seats, most of which had been "accredited seats" reserved for teams, federations and Olympic officials.
Coe said: "I don't want to see swathes of seats empty and will make sure we can do everything we can to fill them.
"For example we looked at gymnastics today and could see empty seats in the accredited area so were able to move some troops so they were sitting there this morning enjoying the gymnastics.
"But let's put this into perspective - those venues are stuffed to the gunwales."
Family
Lord Coe said: "It's not easy to ask people (in the accredited Olympic family) at the beginning of the Games to ask people exactly how, where and when they're going to be in those seats.
"This morning was a very good example, we looked at gymnastics, we could see at this moment there are empty seats in the accredited area - the rest of the venue is looking pretty good this morning, there's a good atmosphere.
"So we were able to move those troops from - I'm not quite sure whether they were on a rest period or whether it was a transition from work through to a rest period - but they're sitting there enjoying the gymnastics.
"We can and we have moved them in there.
"Yesterday, we got pre-accredited students and teachers from the local boroughs. We were able to put 115, 120 into a venue."
The London 2012 chairman went on: "We can clearly sell more tickets, which we did yesterday. We sold something like 1,000 tickets over three sessions.
"The other thing is we can tactically upgrade and move people."
Wimbledon
Asked about how other tickets would be recycled to others in the Olympic Park, he said: "It's very much on the Wimbledon format. It sensibly takes place in our park venues, where we've got classically the double headers, in sports like hockey, basketball water polo, handball.
"On handball yesterday, we recycled just under 300 tickets, about 283 tickets, and they went out to adults at £5 and children at £1.
"Those numbers will increase over the course of the Games.
"It's sensible. People who classically have gone to see one specific team, but the ticket covers them for the next session, and they leave to go to do something else."
IOC communications director Mark Adams insisted that sponsors were not to blame for the problems.
He said: "It's completely wrong to say this is a sponsors issue. It's a whole range of people - federations, athletes, some media, a handful of people, largely speaking the sponsors are in other areas.
"A majority of sponsors have turned up."