More than 7 million very affordable tickets are now on sale for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) announced today. About 75% of the tickets will be sold domestically and the rest will be available to the overseas public.

Late last year, BOCOG announced that ticket prices for the Games will be in keeping with its efforts to host Games accessible to the broadest spectrum of people.

Anticipating a high level of demand, BOCOG Executive Vice President and Secretary General Wang Wei reiterated that the ticketing process will be conducted in the most efficient, fair and open manner possible and will follow internationally-accepted practices.

BOCOG will initiate a three-phased ticketing process for domestic sales. In each phase, residents on the Chinese mainland will be able to order tickets through the official ticketing website (http://tickets.beijing2008.com), calling the BOCOG ticketing call center (+86-10-952008), or through designated Bank of China branches.

For overseas sales, the process will be determined in each country and territory by its National Olympic Committee and its ticketing agent.

Domestic Ticketing Phases

On the Chinese mainland, Phase One of the ticketing process will run from now through the end of September 2007. During this first phase, 50% of the total 2.2 million domestic tickets for competition sessions and the estimated 26,000 tickets available for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, respectively, will be open to the domestic public.

Orders will be fulfilled through a process of ordering and confirmation by random selection. The first half of the period will be dedicated to collecting orders in which prospective ticket buyers indicate for which events they want tickets, and the second-half will be spent trying to determine whether the supply equals the demand for certain events. This approach provides everyone an equal chance of purchasing tickets that are in high demand.

From April 15 to June 30, individuals can place orders through the official BOCOG ticketing website, by submitting completed order forms to designated Bank of China outlets or by mailing a form to Beijing Gehua Ticketmaster Ticketing Co, Ltd. Forms will be available at all Bank of China branches, in newspapers and on the official website.

From July to August, 2007, tickets will be assigned to completed orders. For oversubscribed events, tickets will be allocated using a random computerized selection process.

A similar ordering process will be conducted in Phase Two, which will take place from October to December 2007. Remaining available tickets from Phase One and the other 50% of the competition tickets for sale domestically will be open to the public during this period. Tickets can be ordered through the official website, at designated Bank of China outlets or the ticketing call center, but in this phase tickets will be allocated on a "first-come, first-serve" basis.

A real-time sales process will be conducted in Phase Three from April 2008 until the end of the Olympic Games where tickets will be issued directly upon payment.