By Tom Degun at the Main Press Centre on the Olympic Park in London

A general_view_on_day_4_of_the_London_2012_Olympic_Games_at_Hockey_Centre_on_July_31_31-07-12July 31 - More than two million people have already watched Olympic events during the first three days of London 2012, statistics published today revealed, giving a welcome boost to organisers under fire for empty seats at some venues.

Although the London 2012 Olympics have received widespread plaudits, empty spaces seen at some of the venues have been a cause of frustration for organisers and angered those fans who missed out on tickets due to such high-demand.

But figures collated from the first three days of competition show that 2.126 million people have so far attended events. 

"On Saturday we had 856,000 spectators at events," said London 2012 director of communications and public affairs Jackie Brock-Doyle at a press conference here.

"That includes football and it is using a conservative figure of half a million for the road race [which has been estimated at around one million by other sources, including the police].

"That gives us an 86 per cent attendee rate.

"On Sunday, we had 900,000, which gives us a 92 per cent attendee rate.

"And then yesterday, we had 370,000 but remember there was no football yesterday so that gives an attendee rate of 88 per cent."

Crowds watch_London_2012_mens_cycling_race_July_28_2012A crowd conservatively estimated at 500,000 has helped London 2012 record impressive attendance figures for the first three days of the Olympics

Brock-Doyle maintained that London 2012 will continue to work with international federations to put tickets back on sale to the public every evening on their website.

"We put on sale another 3,800 tickets last night across 30 sessions in about 15 sports and I think almost all of them had gone by this morning," she said.

"But I do not think we should assume we are going to get to 3,800 every time and obviously, as we get closer to the finals, there will be less availability.

"It is day by day and it depends on what sessions are available and also what matches are being played.

"A good example was the Team GB hockey game yesterday when all accredited seating was gone.

"The same with on Sunday (July 29) when we had the Dream Team [US basketball team] playing.

"But we saw yesterday on hockey that actually most of the British spectators also left after the GB [hockey] game [versus Argentina] so it really is going match by match where we can to see how we can get it."

Crowds watch_Team_GB_v_Argentina_London_2012_July_30_2012Empty gaps sometime appear in arenas after fans leave once they have watched Team GB

When asked if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should have a centralised ticketing programme in place for future Games, the IOC's director of communications Mark Adams said his organisation will continue to monitor the situation closely but will not have a full debrief until after London 2012.

"Everything from the IOC point of view is constantly under review," he said.

"We have an Olympic Games knowledge management system and we are at the moment, as we do in every Games, looking at how London 2012 are doing things and we will have a debriefing process.

"Specifically on the ticketing, our internal auditors, before the Games, have been asked to look into the ticketing system and to update it and look at how things are done at the IOC level."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
July 2012: London 2012 puts thousands of tickets back on sale in a bid to solve empty seat fiasco
July 2012: Venues are "stuffed to the gunnels", insists Coe after London 2012 empty seats embarrassment