Red-tape chokes Commonwealth Games ticket sales

The New Zealand distributor of tickets for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games has said the limited number available in New Zealand has left both sellers and sports fans feeling frustrated and has impacted on sales.

On Sunday games officials released another 125,000 tickets which had originally been allocated as VIP seating.

About 1.3 million tickets have been sold but 450,000 have yet to be sold.

Officials have denied they were having trouble selling tickets but New Zealand's games ticket agent believes sports fans here have been hampered by the lack of availability of tickets.

Premier Events Group chief executive officer Malcolm Beattie said only 10 per cent of the total number of games tickets had been made available to about 70 commonwealth countries, with New Zealand taking a small slice of that allocation.

The company is the exclusive distributor of tickets on behalf of the New Zealand Commonwealth Games Association.

A cut-off date of February 26 for ticket sales by the company in New Zealand meant they were no longer selling tickets to the public.

However, they were still arranging tickets for the families of some athletes, he said.

Mr Beattie said about 1000 people had been on the database for the games rugby sevens competition but only 100 tickets had been made available and 600 people had registered for the netball but only 200 were allocated.

"We could not sell the number of tickets we wanted to," Mr Beattie said.

The release of more tickets by games officials on Sunday had been frustrating for the company, especially as tickets were made available for sports for which there had been a demand.

"They made about 40,000 [rugby] seven's tickets available, which we could have done with, and the stadium only holds about 50,000," he said.

One major problem was the legislation surrounding the sale and allocation of tickets.

Legislation had been introduced in Australia to prevent scalpers and blackmarket sales of AFL and Melbourne Grand Prix tickets but had impacted on the Games, he said.

Mr Beattie said: "It has been very difficult for us to achieve the correct ticket mix for New Zealand because of this."

Games officials had encouraged the company to sell tickets as part of the "games experience" rather than focus on the actual sports, he said.

"But no-one really wants to go to the lawn bowls."

Mr Beattie would not confirm the total number of tickets available for the company to sell but tickets had sold "pretty well".

However, due to frustration with ticket allocation and the number of small venues used, sales had not reached their potential, he said.

"For the swimming venue only 2000 tickets were made available for all countries and for the final night we were only allocated six tickets," he said.

Despite the frustration with the ticket bureaucracy, Mr Beattie still believes the games will be the "best ever".

About 28,000 tickets are still available for the closing ceremony, 16,000 for the opening ceremony, more than 280,000 for the athletics and more than 50,000 for the rugby sevens.

Games chief executive officer John Harnden denied today that they were not desperately trying to fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground for next Wednesday's opening ceremony after letters were sent to householders inviting them to buy tickets.

An Australian advertising campaign has also been launched on television and in newspapers.

- NZPA