Deighton hails affordable tickets

London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton insists tickets for the Olympics will "suit every budget".

There are now 8.8 million tickets available for the 26 sports in London, an increase of 800,000 on figures announced in March.

Of these, 6.6 million are going on sale to the public in March 2011. The rest are split between interested parties who back or take part in the Games.

This includes 13% to the National Olympic Committees, 10% to sponsors, 1% to sports federations and another 1% which are prestige tickets which have been set aside for special package deals.

Work is still being done on the tickets for the Olympic Park, which will get ticket-holders into the site in Stratford, east London, but not into the venues.

A ticket re-use system, similar to that run at Wimbledon, will also be in place so that a ticket can be re-used if someone leaves. People who do not use their tickets will also be able to resell them at face value through London 2012.

On the ticket prices, which start at £20, Deighton said: "In comparison with other Olympics I think the top end is more expensive and the bottom end is cheaper.

"In past Games there has always been a black market. We have no question that the tickets will sell. We would rather capture the value of those tickets and enable us to make them affordable at the lower end.

"We have worked really hard to try and make sure that across all the sports we have got prices to suit every budget, that is why we have worked incredibly hard to maximise the number of cheap tickets, which is a third of all our tickets.

"But there are obviously higher prices for people who can afford them and want to go to the top events."