A ticket entitled a spectator to enter the competition venue. Olympic
tickets were hotter than the weather in Beijing, especially the tickets
of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. As they were sold via a real
name system, these tickets had already been valued by collectors.
Each ticket had a digital chip and a unique serial number, which best
featured the tickets of the Opening Ceremony and the Closing Ceremony
of the Beijing Games and helped identify counterfeits. The serial
number and the key had to be matched so that spectators could
be admitted to the venues without showing their ID cards, and this
saved time in the checkup process as well. BOCOG had employed highend
technology and a resale system to beat ticket touters and forgers
profiting from the Games.
Ticket prices for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games were much lower than at previous Games
and
affordable for most people, considering the income level of Chinese
people. According to the ticket policy, 58 per cent of the tickets were
priced at or below 100 yuan (US$12.76) and BOCOG had allocated 14 per
cent of all tickets at special prices to encourage attendance from
Chinese youth. Student tickets were 5 yuan (US$0.64) for preliminaries
and
10 yuan for finals.
