LONDON: The general public will be given priority for tickets for the 2012 London Olympics and everything possible will be done to fill stadiums, the chief organiser said in a newspaper interview Tuesday.

Paul Deighton, the chief executive of LOCOG, the organising committee of the London Olympics, said the aim was to avoid the empty seats seen at some venues during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

"We`ll have 75 percent of the total tickets in the ballot for the general public," Deighton told The Guardian.

"Compared to a football World Cup final or a rugby World Cup that`s a really high number. They`ve tended to have a much higher percentage of corporate tickets to get the yield up.

"Of the remaining 25 percent, about 16 percent will be sold to the international general public through the respective National Olympic Committees.

"The remaining nine percent gets distributed to corporate hospitality, broadcasters and the IOC (International Olympic Committee). So we`re treating people right."

Deighton said the London organisers had studied the ticketing policy used at the Beijing Games in a bid to improve on it.

"One of the big disappointments in Beijing was that, even though they`d sold all the tickets, venues were far from full. That`s a travesty," he told the daily.

"We`ll do everything we can to keep the stadiums full -- and the way to do that is to place tickets with people who really want to come."

He said the Beijing Olympics featured six-hour-long sessions of beach volleyball.

"Now you might be the world`s greatest beach volleyball fan but no one wants to sit through six hours. So we`ve shortened the sessions and we want to make tickets accessible and affordable."

IOC inspectors say the construction of venues for the Games is on track with a little over two years to go until the opening ceremony.

BDST: 2032 HRS, JULY 20, 2010