London 2012 chairman Lord Coe is confident of sell-outs and that organisers are in "good shape" to handle demand as tickets for the 2012 Olympics go on sale on Tuesday.
With 500 days to go to the start of the Games, Lord Coe is convinced the technology is in place to avoid a computer meltdown. He is advising sports fans there is no point in a first-day rush to get the 6.6 million tickets.
Describing it as "a marathon and not a sprint", he said: "I think that we have done everything that we can given the scale and the complexity.
"This is the third online retail in the world (behind eBay and Amazon). I am not naive about the scale of the operation here."
London 2012 are urging sports fans to apply at any time during the six-week application period up to April 26 at 11.59pm. It is not a first-come first-served system and there will be no greater chance of getting a ticket if you apply on the first day than later.
It is hoped the long application window may help to ensure the system does not crash and make would-be buyers vulnerable to bogus websites.
A series of measures have been launched to thwart the fraudsters at the 2012 Games. The maximum fine for ticket-touting at the Olympics is going up from £5,000 to £20,000 and a team of Scotland Yard detectives have already made 49 arrests to combating touts.
Lord Coe is confident that the tickets will be sold stating: "I think that people will view this as one of those life-changing moments and will want to be there."
So far more than 2.5 million have signed up to London 2012's ticket information website and around 2 million have said they want to watch the track and field competitions. Tickets will cost from £20 to £2,012.
Read More
About 2.5 million tickets across more than 200 events will cost £20 or under with sports fan paying an average of £47 to watch an event, according to Lord Coe.
