London Olympics Oversold Synchronized Swimming by 10,000 Seats

Organizers of the London Olympics said they’ve sold 10,000 tickets too many for the synchronized swimming competition.

“As a result of finalizing the seating configurations in our venues and reconciling the millions of Olympic and Paralympic ticket orders against the seating plans for around 1,000 sporting sessions, we have discovered an error in seats available in four synchronized swimming sessions,” the London 2012 organizing committee said in an e-mailed statement.

Around 3,000 people who had applied for synchronized swimming tickets during the second round of the Olympic ticket sales have been contacted last month by the local organizers.

“We are exchanging their synchronized swimming tickets for tickets in other sports that they originally applied for,” Locog said.

The 2012 organizers have been criticized by U.K. consumer groups including Which? for the way the event’s 8.8 million tickets were sold last year. Only 700,000 people were successful in a first-round public ballot, with 1.2 million missing out. Another sale allowed some of those to subsequently gain tickets.

The London Games start July 27.

To contact the reporters on this story: Danielle Rossingh in London at drossingh@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Elser at celser@bloomberg.net