Embarrassment as wrong date printed on 15,000 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony tickets

The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (GOLDOC) has admitted an embarrassing error with almost 15,000 tickets issued for the Games opening ceremony having the wrong date.

14,400 tickets have been printed with ‘Thursday, April 4’ as the date when the opening ceremony is on Wednesday 4th April.

Despite the error, the tickets will remain valid despite with GOLDOC Chief Executive Mark Peters, advising that the tickets would not be recalled.

Peters said the mishap was due to a “human error” at partner Ticketek, advising “Ticketek and ourselves are disappointed this has happened. It was a human error in the checking.”

Peters added that there have not been any other problems with the other “90% of tickets that have gone out for all the other events.

“This is a ticket that’s got a lot of security checks around it, so most people will understand that the opening ceremony is on that night.”

About 35,000 people will attend the opening ceremony at Carrara Stadium and Peters said that checks would be made to ensure the remaining 20,000 tickets will be printed with the correct date.

Ticketek have also revealed that 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.

Minister Jones stated “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.

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

The Gold Coast’s Commonwealth Games will run from 4th to 15th April.

Image: One of the opening ceremony tickets with the wrong date.

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