Beijing Is All Dressed Up, But No One Is Going

The Chinese had hoped masses of cheering fans and Olympic revelers would help present their country in the best possible light, as the Games are being televised to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 4 billion. Tickets had been in such demand that the release of the last 250,000 created a scene of havoc last month when more than 30,000 people mobbed Beijing's ticket center. Officials from other countries complained they weren't getting enough tickets because China offered so many to its own residents.

Though Opening Ceremonies tickets sold for $645, nearly 60 percent of the tickets cost $13 or less.

Organizers proudly announced the sellout of the Olympic tickets at the end of July, expecting this Summer Games would provide a significant and welcome contrast to the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. International worries about terrorism and local disinterest hurt ticket sales there; organizers sold only about two-thirds of the 5.3 million tickets offered, and many events were poorly attended.

"We've seen from past Games experience that each host country and its cultures has differing appreciations for the various sports which means some venues are packed, others not so," Giselle Davies, an IOC spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "As regards Beijing, for the venues that aren't full, the organizers are working on how to offer students and others the chance to see and learn about the sports."

Venues across Beijing were dotted Tuesday by the cheerful cheer squads. At the Fengtai Sports Center Softball Field, about 200 people sporting yellow shirts with "Cheering From Beijing Workers" inscribed on them in English and Mandarin sat in the scorching sun in the outfield bleachers, which were otherwise largely empty. Covering their heads with white caps, towels or pieces of newspaper to stave off the heat, they waved tiny red flags, red fans and inflatable noisemakers. Several described themselves as blue-collar workers who had gotten tickets from their factories or companies and had been schooled in the art of good cheering.

"Today, 50 workers came to do the cheerleading job," said Wang Li, 30, who works for an automobile manufacturer in Beijing. "Our company sends us to softball today, but other workers were sent to other venues to do some work. We come here on shifts."

Wang said the workers had been coached. They learned: "Olympics, Go, Go, Go! China, Go, Go, Go! Beijing, Go, Go, Go!"

Said Wang Wei: "The volunteers are assigned to cheer for both sides in order to provide good atmosphere. . . . The responsibility rests with the . . . venue managers. If they find there are not enough people, too many empty seats, [they should] organize some cheerleaders."

The empty seats have raised the ire of those who made large investments in money and time to secure tickets.

Wu Qifa, 32, a senior digital design engineer, said the attendance at two weekend field hockey games shrank from about 60 percent capacity to perhaps 40 percent when rain swamped the venue. Despite the weather, Wu expressed frustration at the empty seats given the lengths she had gone to obtain them.

"When we wanted tickets, we couldn't buy them," Wu said. "My colleagues tried to buy online but were out of luck. I tried to line up to buy tickets but it was so impossibly crowded. . . . I think that some tickets for foreign countries are not sold out. Or some people who bought the tickets, but could not enter China."

Meng Xianan, 28, a paralegal from Beijing, bought her ticket for men's gymnastics online last year. But her seat for the preliminaries on Saturday was in the last row of the National Indoor Stadium.

"There were quite a lot empty seats in front of me," Meng said. "I suspect the empty seats are free tickets. It's unfair. As soon as I saw the empty seats, I was annoyed."

Added Meng: "I'm going to watch diving in several days. The tickets are from my boyfriend's company, which is one of the sponsors. From what I understand, they couldn't give all their tickets away last weekend. What a waste."

Staff reporters Thomas Boswell, Les Carpenter, Liz Clarke, Michael Lee, Dave Sheinin, Dan Steinberg and Barry Svrluga, and researchers Liu Liu and Zhang Jie, contributed to this report.