FANS who wish to watch the Olympics on big screens in the Olympic Park are set to be charged £10 apiece, according to media reports. The decision to charge for entry into the site has been met with controversy as taxpayers paid for the £7.25 billion site.
Around 20 000 ground tickets for the park are set to be made available each day and the Daily Mail reports that they will be “priced at £10 or more”.
The decision was criticised by London Assembly members.
“It is astonishing to be asked to pay to watch television,” said Tony Arbour of the Conservative Party who represents South West London.
“The UK citizens still appear to be being short-changed. First they were not given access to the number of tickets they thought they would be because they were snaffled up by other groups and now they must pay to watch it on a screen.
“This was supposed to be a great public celebration, but it seems that the celebrating is going to be rationed.”
The largest screen in the Olympic Park will be double-sided and floated on a pontoon in the River Lea.
Organisers have also recently announced that they will charge spectators to watch road cycling on Box Hill, while in Weymouth, where the sailing competitions will be held, parts of the coastline will be fenced off so that those without tickets will not be able to see the action.
Lady Dee Doocey, the Liberal Democrat peer and chairwoman of the London Assembly’s culture and sport committee also criticised the lack of transparency as regards to just how many tickets for events are being made available to the general public.
“This is a Games for the rich rather than a Games for everyone. This obsessive secrecy (about ticket allocation) makes you wonder what they are hiding,” she said.
“(Olympic organisers) Locog say that once all the tickets have been sold then they will give us a breakdown. But that is absolutely no use to us because by then it will be too late to do anything about it.” (Eurosport)