Londoners hoping to visit the 2012 Olympics will need to pay as much as £725 per ticket.
Olympic chiefs announced ticket prices on Friday and were keen to push the message that, although tickets to some events would attract a high price, 90% of tickets would be sold for “£100 or under” and two-thirds of these tickets will be priced at £50 or under.
Announcing the prices, London 2012 Chair Seb Coe said organisers “have three clear principles for our ticketing strategy – tickets need to be affordable and accessible to as many people as possible, tickets are an important revenue stream for us to fund the Games and our ticketing plans have the clear aim of filling our venues to the rafters.”
However Liberal Democrat Assembly Member Dee Doocey accused organisers of backtracking on previous commitments that “roughly” half the tickets would cost £20 or less.
Analysis by the London Assembly Liberal Democrats suggests less than 30% of tickets fall into that price bracket.
Doocey commented: “The Games are costing the £9.3 billion funded from general taxation, but Londoners are also paying a levy on their council tax. To now find that most ticket prices will not be affordable for a huge number of Londoners and their families is indefensible.”
Ticket prices were confirmed on the same day as Mayor of London Boris Johnson announced more than 120,000 tickets would be allocated to school children in the capital.
City Hall statistics suggest the allocation of tickets will ensure that one eighth of London school children would get to see the games live.
In a statement Mayor Johnson said: “One of the greatest legacies we can lever from the London Games is to see young people in the capital embrace the Olympic and Paralympic values and motivate them towards sporting and academic achievement. Through the Get Set programme hundreds of thousands of young people have already made London 2012 their games, been inspired by sport and raised their aspirations across the full range of their ambitions.
“Having invested so much I want all Londoners to have a real sense that these are their Games too. So it is right that, through this scheme, we can acknowledge their support by rewarding thousands of London kids with the unique opportunity to be part of this amazing sporting spectacle.”
Tickets go on sale in March 2011, full prices can be viewed on the 2012 Games site.
