By YUSUKE SAITO/ Staff Writer
June 24, 2021 at 18:49 JST
Tokyo Olympics admission tickets (Provided by the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games)
The Tokyo Olympic organizing committee announced on June 23 it will hold a lottery to determine which fans of those who have bought tickets for the Summer Games will be allowed to attend the events.
A total of 910,000 tickets, or about 20 percent of tickets sold to fans, will be refunded following the results of the lottery, which will be announced on the official ticketing website on July 6. Ticket holders can apply for refunds from that day.
The move comes on the heels of the decision to limit number of spectators for each Olympic venue to 50 percent of capacity, up to a maximum of 10,000.
An additional lottery with 97 time slots will be held for tickets of eight sports and the Opening and Closing ceremonies, according to the organizing committee. The eight sports are track and field, baseball, soccer, golf, modern pentathlon, rugby, softball and surfing.
A total of 4.48 million tickets were sold for the Summer Games but due to the reduction of tickets through the lottery and a prior refund because of the postponement of the Games, the number of valid tickets for the event will fall to 2.72 million.
Spectators who end up with valid tickets will need to print out their PDF tickets for admission.
People who chose “paper tickets” at the time of purchase can receive them after the Games are over as a keepsake.
For the Paralympics, the maximum number of spectators will be announced on July 16. Further procedures regarding the event will be announced following that.
Luxury tickets including food and drink services and tour tickets provided through travel agencies will not be cut through the lottery this time.
The tickets sold for Olympics-associated groups and members, including sports groups, host towns and sponsors, will also not be reduced through another lottery.
“The associated people have made efforts to reduce tickets,” an organizing committee official said. The official said that the 1.7 million tickets sold to the groups were slashed to about 500,000 tickets.
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