Ticket less fans left on outside looking in (or up)

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 05/15/2008 12:35 PM  |  Sports

The eyes of 10-year-old Joseph Georgio Alvari were glued to a giant screen outside the badminton hall in Senayan, Central Jakarta, where the Thomas and Uber Cups are taking place. Up on the screen, Indonesian men's doubles Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan were playing Robert Adcock and Robin Middleton of England.

The fair-skinned plump boy, who was sitting on the dirty asphalt next to his father, screamed along with some other 400 viewers as Markis gave a final striking shot to put away their opponents and give Indonesia a 2-0 lead.

"I enjoy it very much. If we can reach the finals, I want to watch them (Markis and Hendra) play. I don't mind watching on the screen here if we can't get any tickets again," Joseph said.

Georgio and his father, Yopi Hendri, also failed to get tickets to watch the evening matches Wednesday, after waiting for hours in front of the four ticket booths next to the stadium.

TransTV provided the big screen on the fourth day of the tournament, in response to complaints from fans who have been unable to get into the badminton hall because of the unavailability of tickets.

"We waited for one-and-a-half hours before we finally realized that they had run out of tickets. It's too far for us to go back to our house in Bekasi, so we decided to join other people watching the match on the screen," Yopi said, adding that the organizers should do a better job of informing the lines of fans when tickets are sold out.

Tickets have been difficult to come by from the start of the tournament, shutting out hundreds of fans. Organizers have released far fewer tickets than the stadium can hold, saying they were caught by surprise by demand.

"We don't get enough information about the tickets. I don't understand why the organizers don't learn their lesson. This ticketing problem has repeatedly happened," Yopi said.

He said he didn't want to pay the prices being demanded by scalpers. He said scalpers were selling first-class tickets officially priced at Rp 50,000 for Rp 250,000.

Linda Wahyudi, an official at the tournament overseeing ticketing and media, said, "I gave up with the scalpers. I don't know what to do with them. Although we have a rule that one person can only buy two tickets at the most, they use many tricks to get more tickets."

"One of them even dared to offer me a ticket."

She said organizers sold out 5,500 tickets for the public, plus another 500 given for free to athletes' families, on Wednesday afternoon.

She said the same number of tickets would be distributed for the semifinal and the final rounds. Besides the ticket boxes at the stadium, tickets can be purchased at three other locations -- Ibu Dibyo ticketing agent at Jl. Cikini Raya No. 10, the office of the Indonesia Badminton Association in Senayan and Susi Sport in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta.

Exclusive tickets that can be bought using Bank BRI credit and debit cards were sold out on Monday, Linda said.

"We plan to sell more tickets by adding to the stadium capacity. We will move athletes and their delegations to three empty courts because we will only use one court during the semifinals and finals."

"Their place can be used for spectators," she said.

Bung Karno Sports Hall can hold 8,500 people but the Badminton World Federation and the police have asked the organizing committee to limit the crowd to 7,500 due to security concerns. A total of 1,500 seats were made available for sponsors and invited guests. (ind)

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