Recycling plan to fill 2012 seats

The government intends to keep empty seats to a minimum in 2012

Wimbledon-style ticket recycling should be used to fill empty seats at London's 2012 Olympics, events promoter Harvey Goldsmith has said.

Departing spectators at the annual Wimbledon tennis championships hand over their day tickets for re-use.

Mr Goldsmith, who produced Live Aid, said this system could be adopted to avoid rows of empty seats, evident at this year's Beijing Olympics.

He said filling spectator seats would be a "huge issue" for the London event.

There were rows of empty seats at some events in Beijing, despite the Games being officially sold out.

Volunteers in yellow shirts were used to fill up empty venues and improve the atmosphere inside.

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell has pledged to keep empty seats to a minimum at London's Games.

Why go through all the trouble of hosting a wonderful event and try to build great facilities just to mess up on the tickets? Harvey Goldsmith

Mr Goldsmith said: "It needs a lot of thought, particularly because in London there is going to be a lot of focus on it.

"One thing the Olympic movement does not want is to have pictures of lots of empty seats without sports supporters in them."

He added: "Why go through all the trouble of hosting a wonderful event and try to build great facilities just to mess up on the tickets?"

Wimbledon's approach would not solve the problem of sold-out events where ticket holders do not show up, however, so Mr Goldsmith said other methods to fill stadiums should also be considered.

By 2012 there may be new mobile phone applications to aid the ticket distribution process, he added.