If the spectator turn out is less, don’t blame them!

By Bobins V Abraham

Even as the Commonwealth Games Organinising Committee boss Mr Suresh Kalmadi was shouting hoarse from roof top that the spectator turn out for the games was very low nobody has enquired about the reason for this. Hear is one reason .The people are not provided tickets. Sounds ode? But true. The ticket counters in Pacific mall, central bank of India and Hero Honda show- rooms were not issuing tickets.!

People turned out in large numbers for tickets but had to return empty handed after long hours of wait. Monday it was told that they had no change to give to the ticket buyers and booking will open on Tuesday by 11o clock . Same was the story in Hero Honda outlets. In Central Bank of India branches they denied to book tickets below Rs500.

Even today morning large crowd thronged the sales counters and waited till 3 o clock. Finally they were told that due to technical reasons they were unable to give tickets. The funniest excuse of this time was that the printer ran out of ink and they could not print tickets. This almost made a mob of more than hundred laying their hands on the people in the stall.

By 12 o clock when people started protesting and demanding an explanation the authorities provided the prospective ticket buyers with three telephone numbers. When they tried to contact those numbers no one was picking up the phone, according to a games fan. Finally they got an official on phone named Salman who promised them that tickets will be delivered soon. That didn’t happen either.

“Dear organizers make sure that the public is provided with tickets before you complain about the poor attendance by spectators.. People want to see the gala event and cheer for their icons, the hapless spectators lamented. "