Head of ticketing for 2008 Olympics has been shunted out by organisers in a fallout of the ticket booking system collapse in the recent second tranche of sales.
BEIJING: Head of ticketing for 2008 Olympics has been shunted out by organisers in a fallout of the ticket booking system collapse in the recent second tranche of sales that had left tens of thousands of people disappointed.
Zhu Yan was appointed replacing Rong Jun as director of the Olympic ticketing centre by the Beijing Organising Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG)in the wake of last month's ticket sales incident, state media reported.
Zhu, who previously worked for the Beijing municipal government, said sale of tickets would be restricted to eight each instead 50 as fixed earlier, when ticket sales resume under a lottery system on December 10.
"Each person could apply for tickets for only two competition sessions, and only four tickets for each session," said Zhu who explained the new policy would give more people a chance to watch the games, and "will prevent ticket scalpers from making profits".
Zhu didn't give the exact number of tickets available for the second phase but said it would be no fewer than 1.8 million, Xinhua news agency reported.
Seven million tickets are available to the general public with nearly three quarters reserved for domestic sales. The first batch of 1.6 million tickets was allocated by lottery earlier this year.
Olympics organisers had announced sale of second batch of tickets by lottery, after it was suspended when the booking system crashed following a frenzied demand.
When the second round opened on October 30, 1.85 million tickets were up for sale on first-come-first-served basis through the ticketing website, a hotline and 1,000 designated bank branches.
But faced with a deluge of demand, the booking system crashed, leaving tens of thousands of people disappointed and making the red faced organisers to tender an apology.
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