"During the Games we want to do a kind of anti-Beijing programme so we don't have any prospect of loads of the empty venues you saw on occasion at the last Olympics," he told insidethegames as he attended the launch of the London School Games.

"We are going to make sure that there will be the opportunity to get loads of people, loads of school children, into the venues during Games time itself if we think the venues, as they may very well be, are going to be a bit under-populated."

Asked how empty spaces could be envisaged given the number of people who have been desperate to get hold of tickets in the first two London 2012 ballots, Johnson responded: "You may well ask.

"It's the corporates.

"It may well be that there are going to be spaces and I just want to make sure that we have a programme that will ensure spaces are used.

"I went to the Beijing Games and it was pretty disappointing to see some of those venues under-populated.


"You never know what's going to happen, you never know if people are going to turn up in the way they say they are going to turn up."

Asked if that meant transporting in groups of children in brightly coloured t-shirts, Johnson responded: "We are looking at things like that.

"I don't want to see those gaps.

"It would be a crying shame if the corporates took loads of tickets and then excluded the possibility of people who desperately want to be there."

The Mayor, who had declared himself "cheesed off" after failing to get Olympic tickets in the first ballot, revealed that he had been more successful second time around.

"I was cheesed off, but thankfully I was successful in the second go and got tickets for basketball and beach volleyball," he said.

"I have the best possible excuse for the beach volleyball, which was that was all there was there."

Asked what he would wear to the event he responded: "Something tasteful. Something discreet."

He added: "I'm happy but I do recognise and I have talked to loads of people who feel really aggrieved about not getting tickets and I do understand their feelings."

He also urged the 22 per cent of eligible schools who had not yet signed up to the scheme, which will deliver 125,000 free Olympic tickets to one-in-eight London schoolchildren, to come forward and register.

"They have got until December 16 to do it," he said.

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, standing alongside Johnson inside a tennis court full of competing children and, perilously flying tennis balls, defended the Government's right to offer a section of Olympic tickets to VIPs.

"We have got a very small allocation for guests of the Government, international business people who would like to invest in the UK and who can create jobs," he said.

"We have been very careful not to ask for more than we need."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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