tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post8893305311298282059..comments2024-01-08T19:49:13.932+00:00Comments on Froogville: "Security" - the convenient excuse for everythingFrooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-76476519193258308122008-08-28T08:34:00.000+00:002008-08-28T08:34:00.000+00:00I don't think that has got much worse in recent ye...I don't think that has got much worse in recent years, JES. There's been saturation TV coverage for, what, 30 years or so now. I'm sure attendance figures will hold up pretty well in London, and in any other future host city that's reasonably accessible and reasonably visitor-friendly.<BR/><BR/>Foreign visitors were severely discouraged from attending here in Beijing. And the local Chinese just don't have that much interest in or understanding of most of the sports. (Many of them had been applying for tickets through the distribution lotteries purely so that they could sell them on at a fat profit, I'm sure. But there wasn't that much scope for profiteering, with very few affluent visitors here, and a huge over-supply of unwanted tickets.)<BR/><BR/>However, I did remark that we have perhaps been spoiled by our constant exposure to the TV close-up over the years. One goes to a major sporting event for the sense of occasion; but one almost always frets that one didn't really get as good a view of the action as one would at home on TV. That's particularly true of athletics, which can seem impossibly remote in a big stadium like the Bird's Nest (even if you're right at the trackside), and is mostly a blink-and-you've-missed-it kind of deal anyway. I suspect that nowadays a lot of visitors to things like these Olympics watch the action more on the giant TV screens around the venues than they watch it 'in the flesh'.Frooghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-76550455279866542892008-08-28T00:54:00.000+00:002008-08-28T00:54:00.000+00:00Yes. Absurd.I wonder how much of the... the vacuum...Yes. Absurd.<BR/><BR/>I wonder how much of the... the vacuum might be attributable to technology -- the ready availability of the Games' events on TV and the Internet?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com