Games ticket misprint a hiccup beattie 20180213 p5w75a.html – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Games ticket misprint a hiccup, Beattie

AAP

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Gold Coast Commonwealth Games boss Peter Beattie has urged critics to put an embarrassing ticket bungle into perspective.

The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation (GOLDOC) revealed on Tuesday thousands of opening ceremony tickets had been issued with a misprint.

About 14,000 tickets were printed with "Thursday, April 4", when the opening ceremony is on Wednesday, April 4.

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The tickets remain valid despite the error but GOLDOC chairman Peter Beattie conceded it was a regrettable mistake.

"Of course we're embarrassed by it but, realistically, we've got 90 per cent of our tickets out, this is an event where there's 1.2 million tickets," Mr Beattie told AAP.

"The facts of life are you will have hiccups in events that are this big.

"Will it affect anybody? Not really. The debate about it is good; the publicity about it is good because everyone will understand."

The blunder was compounded when Ticketek announced it had to re-issue hundreds of tickets to weightlifting, table tennis and the triathlons that were printed with an incorrect session time.

Queensland Commonwealth Games Minister Kate Jones said it was "not good enough" that there had been an issue with the tickets but she was satisfied by Ticketek's response to the bungle.

"This is the largest run of tickets that Ticketek has ever done, more than one million tickets were needed to be provided for the Commonwealth Games," Ms Jones said.

"Ticketek have already come out and acknowledged their mistake and I echo that apology."

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Village Roadshow executive general manager Bikash Randhawa, whose company operates the Oxenford Studios facility which will host boxing, squash and table tennis events, said the ticketing errors raised questions about organisation of the Games.

"Well how does this happen for such a premium event?" Mr Randhawa wrote on Twitter.

"I guess we should just suck it up as @SmartState1 (Mr Beattie) says. Deal with it folks as you will with traffic and everything else, what was that comment you can put lipstick on a pig it will still be a pig."

Mr Beattie dismissed any fears about the organisation of the Games, insisting GOLDOC will be ready to host the event.

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"The truth is there are people who want to take a cheap shot at the Games because we're the biggest event in town," he said.

"You can see the Games are well organised. Of course we've got challenges ... there was a mistake, everyone involved is mortified but it's not the end of the world."

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