$2m sales in last-minute rush From: AAP March 15, 2006
Countdown ... cyclists training in Melbourne today. Picture: AP HUNDREDS of thousands of Commonwealth Games tickets remain unsold despite a $2 million ticket buying blitz over the past two days.
Commonwealth Games Minister Justin Madden said today sports fans had bought some 40,000 tickets since an additional 22,200 seats were released to the public on Monday, including to some previously sold-out events. A record 1.3 million tickets have been sold with Mr Madden confident most remaining tickets would sell during the Games.
$15 tickets are still available to some events, such as weightlifting, badminton, squash and table tennis.
Tickets are also still available to tonight's opening ceremony, but Games chief executive John Harnden said it would not matter if there were a few empty seats.
"I think those seats will obviously be there, but again, I think with the small number of seats that are literally sprinkled around the stadium, it is going to be a venue that from all appearances, even if there are a few seats that aren't taken up, will appear full," he said.
Advertisement: "Even if there's a couple of thousand seats (empty), it absolutely looks jam-packed, so we're delighted with where it's at." Games chairman Ron Walker said more tickets had been sold to tonight's event than for the Atlanta and Athens Olympics openings.
"I think everybody has to realise that we're in many ways a victim of our own success," he said.
"The MCG is one of the largest stadiums in the world.
"So the few tickets that the media are honing in on is totally irrelevant because it's such a huge stadium, so I think that the success is in the proof of what's going to happen tonight."
