TOKYO: Demand among local citizens for tickets to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has far exceeded expectations, leading organisers to state Friday that there will now be a second ticket lottery in August for those who missed out the first time around.
The second-round lottery will likely take place before August 22, when applications for Paralympic tickets are scheduled to start.
“There was a massive amount of applications received in the first wave and this absolutely exceeded our expectations,” Tokyo 2020 spokesman Masa Takaya said on Friday.
“So in that respect, we are pleased to see such huge excitement being built up amongst people across Japan.”
The Tokyo 2020 organising committee has also ditched plans to offer further unsold tickets on a first-come, first-served basis later in the autumn, as had been originally proposed.
Between 70-80% of all tickets have been reserved for domestic sale with the remainder allocated to international customers and sponsors.
Yoshiro Mori, head of the organizing committee, has said he felt “very sorry” for those who didn’t get any tickets. “Personally, I think we should do something to let those people try again,” Mori said shortly after the lottery results were announced on June 20.
Organisers say that over 7.5 million people had registered for the Tokyo fan ID needed to make a ticket application.
According to Japan’s Kyodo newswire, the number of fan IDs registered in the system comes close to the total number of tickets available, which Tokyo 2020 organisers have said is approximately 7.8 million.
More than 11,000 athletes will be competing in 33 sports at the Olympics, and roughly 4,400 will compete across 22 sports in the Paralympics.
