Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Half empty stadiums at the Youth Olympic Games

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Half empty stadiums at the Youth Olympic Games

Many stadiums at the Youth Olympic Games were more than half empty, although the tickets were reportedly sold out.

In the effort to look good, the organizers of the games asked the Ministry of Education to buy the tickets. The Ministry obliged and distributed them to the schools for the students to attend. Many students collected the tickets and did not show up. There is a saying "You can make a horse go the river, but you cannot force the horse to drink the water".

Why didn't the sports fans buy the tickets earlier? Typical Singapore behavior - wait for the last minute, unwilling to plan ahead, maybe can get free tickets!

This challenge has played the organizers of local sports and art events for more than a decade. I hope that our top leaders realize the challenges. They have been sheltered from the realities of the ground due to the hard work of their underlings over the years - to make things look good.

Many Singaporeans do not have time for sports, arts and leisure. They have to work hard to earn enough money to pay for the mortgages of their HDB flats and the high cost of living. The students have to study hard to get a job to pay for these things.

To lead a gracious and cultural life, one needs to earn enough to afford them. Unfortunately, this is out of reach of most ordinary people in Singapore.Not many people earn the high salaries of our government leaders and the elites.

Tan Kin Lian

10 comments:

Unknown said...: I tried to buy some tickets for the finals yesterday but the few sports I am interested in were all sold out.

I am not willing to go to the stadium before the event and hope that tickets are available because of the possibility of a wasted trip. Guess I am not passionate enough.; August 19, 2010 8:02 AM
StocksKeeper said...: my interest is in football but please take a look at teams that take part, i just lose my interest after that. :P; August 19, 2010 9:25 AM
Vincent said...: Well said Mr Tan. You have written out what is exactly on my mind.; August 19, 2010 9:44 AM
Choe Kok Fai Patrick said...: Over the years, Singapore has became a high-cost, materialistic society. We need to earn enough to pay for housing and car. How to earn enough? The gahmen's solution is to encourage both husband and wife to work. When husband and wife work, the family earns enough for a house and a car (and a 20 years debt of course). When husband and wife each work 65 hours a week (including travel time) where got time for other 'gracious and cultural' pursuits? Where got time to give birth to more babies?

One solution is stop encouraging both husband and wife to both work full-time. Only one should work full-time, the other should work half-the-time.

But our society is now so obsessed with materialism that very few are prepared to work half-the-time and earn less.

Which other country has so high a percentage of dual-career families? Maybe Hong Kong - Which has very less babies than Singapore!; August 19, 2010 9:51 AM
Unknown said...: Why should there be empty seats if tickets are really all sold out? By giving the false impression that the tickets are selling like hot cakes, the organizer must have shot itself in the foot when people are turned away from "sold out" events.

Then there's the question why tickets bought by MOE are not allocated or distributed.

If the YOG is also for the people, it's still not too late to be gracious and open up these events to the public at no charge... before it's too little too late.; August 19, 2010 10:18 AM
yujuan said...: Not all shortcut strategies would work, especially when "force" is being used, people's mentality just get swithched off. School kids have the same heavy workload as adults, forcing them to attend results in halfhearted or no-show appearances.
The kiasu mentality of the YOG committee just backfire, also points to their capability in organising skills for such events,
they have to call for help from Govt.; August 19, 2010 1:42 PM
rex said...: Rex comments as follows,

You said that "many singaporeans do not have time for sports, arts and leisure". You also suggested in your last para. that the YOG tickets are priced too high and not affordable.

I don't fully agree.
World Cup shows are very popular;
Visiting Pop Divas (from USA, Taiwan, hongkong) shows are also very popular. This proves that singpaoreans do have time to spare for leisure and they don't mind paying if they find that it is value for money in their own judgement. People need to have a bit of emotional pull before they would part with money and time to spend on leisure. YOG does not have that X Factor of this "emotional force",,the athletes are relatively unknown too, even the local ones!// and furthermore not all sports enjoy the same popularity but YOG has too many different type of sports events.

Publicity can help to stimulate interest. But The problem is that the publicity of YOG was ALL WRONG. For one week the focus is on the torch relay. Who cares about the torch? It was only a day before YOG started that the video clips of athletes begin to be seen on tV. I found those clips more inspiring and interesting than any of the silly YOG torch relay stuffs and opening ceremony misguided propagandas.

YOG is sports. YOG is not about torch bearing, YOG is not about showing the world Singapore history. So all this PR is completely wrong - sure enough, huge amounts of money go to the drain, because it did not succeed to fuel the singaporean's emotional attachment to the athlete's and the sports itself!

rex; August 19, 2010 2:08 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Rex,
I am referring to Signaporeans in general. Some people have time and money, but most people don't have time and money.
Some people will spend their money on a diva, but they won't have money for other things.
It is easy to pick out points to disagree,but there is no need to. Anyway, it is one person's opinion against another person.
I will not comment on your views as to the cause of the YOG problem. We do not have the facts, so there is no point in entering into a debate.; August 19, 2010 2:15 PM
C H Yak said...: The reason behind empty seats is quite simple.

Govt affiliated organisations including schools are "forced" into buying tickets which are perhaps even given out free. And many just don't turn up because indirectly they are "forced" to attend although tickets are given out free. And if they want to attend, must they stay the whole day through...students are even reminded to bring their own money for meals...

There are also special cases such as schools imposing a $5 deposit to force students to turn up. The principals then explained that this is to teach students to be "responsible". LOL.

Sports can only be promoted through a passion and positive approach ... when a country is an economic-centric Leviathan, how to overcome the apathy? For working adults, you expect them take annual leave to attend?; August 19, 2010 2:21 PM
Yawning Bread Sampler said...: I was at the Gymnastics Men's Finals Wednesday, which was said to be sold out. Inside, about 12 percent of the bleachers were closed off and left empty. I don't know why. I would assume that the capacity represented by the closed-off bleachers were not put on sale. Of the bleachers that were not cordoned off, about 10 percent of the bleachers space were unoccupied.
.
As for boosting Singapore's image in the eyes of the world, I have a London friend who has been checking news sites in the UK (and CNN) for news about YOG. He has just written a comment to my blog Yawning Bread to say he can find no news about YOG in Singapore at all.; August 19, 2010 5:49 PM