NSW: Paralympic tickets future unknown

AAP General News (Australia)
08-04-2000
NSW: Paralympic tickets future unknown

By Tom Wald

SYDNEY, Aug 4 AAP - The delivery of Paralympics tickets was still up in the air today
after SOCOG reneged on its promise to send them out with Olympic tickets.

The latest ticketing fiasco affects up to 20,000 Australians who have bought tickets
to the Paralympic Games.

Games chief executive Lois Appleby today called for SOCOG to quickly fix the problem
just two months out from the event.

The Olympic Games organising committee promised in May that all Paralympics tickets
would be delivered alongside Olympics tickets.

"My main concern is just that everybody gets their tickets in time and we still do
have time," Ms Appleby said today.

"What I am waiting to find out is just when and how we're going to deliver the tickets
to about 10,000 to 20,000 people who have bought them."

"They have to make the decision because we have paid them to do this for us, so it
is their responsibility.

"But there's not a lot of time left."

Ticket delivery manager for both the Olympics and Paralympics, John Purdie-Smith, said
today a decision on the tickets for the October Games would be made soon.

His comments come as one-third of the 2.5 million Olympic tickets are to be delivered
across the nation on Sunday, with the remaining tickets delivered every Sunday until September
3.

"My understanding is that SOCOG decided not to further complicate an already massive
and complex program by adding another set of different deliveries," Mr Purdie-Smith told
reporters today.

The delivery of the majority of the 430,000 Paralympics tickets sold to date to community
groups and schools has already been organised.

Mr Purdie-Smith said thousands of Australians expecting their Olympic tickets to be
home-delivered this Sunday will not receive them because of address problems.

"Ten thousand (people) have notified us of their change of address too late," she said.

"Some homes will be difficult or impossible to find because of incomplete or inaccurate
addresses."

Organisers have asked ticket-buyers to ensure someone is home on the allocated Sunday
between 8am and 5pm, to ensure their tickets are delivered safely.

SOCOG said they would hold tickets at collection centres for those people they could
not reach by home-delivery methods.

Anybody with queries about delivery arrangements can call 136363.

AAP tdw/ah/was/br

KEYWORD: OLY TICKETS NIGHTLEAD

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