July 20, 2004 A Cold Reality: Athens Is Not a Hot Ticket By BILL PENNINGTON and ANTHEE CARASSAVA
In the final weeks preceding every recent Olympiad, it has become tradition for there to be a late rush on tickets to the events. But as the Olympic Games return to their ancestral home in Athens next month, it may take a truly historic run on tickets to keep many events from playing out to nearly empty arenas and stadiums. Athens organizers say they have sold slightly more than a third of the 5.3 million tickets available for the 2004 Summer Games, which open Aug. 13 and continue until Aug. 29. At this point in the preparation for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, more than half the tickets had been sold - and Sydney was offering more tickets at higher prices. Sydney eventually sold more than 80 percent of its 7.6 million tickets. Last week in Athens, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, the chief organizer of the 2004 Summer Games, took the unusual step of calling on Greeks to buy unsold tickets to avoid a national embarrassment at the world's biggest athletic event. "Tickets at fair prices are still available," she said in an interview with Athens radio stations. Angelopoulos called the Olympics, "a once-in-a-lifetime chance for people to experience the Games." Rest of the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/20/sports/othersports/20ticket.html?th
