Games boss: Ticket saga ‘baseless’

The PNG Games Organising Committee says that the 9000 tickets that were sold for the closing ceremony corresponded to the seating arrangement and capacity of the stadium.

This response comes amid claims that almost 1000 ticket holders were sent away at the gates during Saturday’s event.

PNG Loop spoke with the committee CEO Peter Stewart who says that while they are considerate of issues highlighted by ticket holders who could not get through to the closing ceremony, many of the tickets in question would have granted its holder access to the event.

Stewart says that on the closing ceremony night, 9000 tickets were processed and says that all fake or counterfeit tickets were not entertained.

He says  that many of their officials were told to be at the gates until well into the ceremony starting to ensure that all ticket holders got in.

“At no time on Saturday night did any one of our officials receive complaints that genuine ticket holders could not gain access to the sites,” he says.

The issue Stewart highlights is that many of the complaints were from people who fronted up wanting to buy tickets into the BSP stadium and were not allowed access.

When asked if ticket holders could reimburse their tickets he said that an opportunity was given for ticket holders to speak with officials at the gate however this was not taken.

 As such an added issue would be whether or not the tickets in question were genuine to begin with.

For now, despite the 9000 or so that managed to get in, there is still an outstanding 1000 or so people who claim that their tickets were not processed and that they were not allowed access into the gates, dampening what many hoped would be a good send off to the 2015 Pacific Games.

Author: 
Julianna Waeda