1948 Olympics: Officials confident that the Games will pay

The 1948 Olympic Games organising committee was banking on revenue from ticket sales as the chief source of its income, and attracting advance sales was an essential part of the strategy. However, despite the fact that various nations had ordered several hundred thousand pounds worth of tickets, as the opening ceremony approached very few had actually sent any money. The media, as Janie Hampton describes it in The Austerity Olympics , did not help matters: In mid-July news reached the press that the US-Olympic Committee had sold only 10 per cent of their tickets and the papers proceeded to declare the Games a flop. Then word spread that tickets had actually sold out. They hadn't but the rumour slowed sales even further. By 19 July, £450,000 had been taken, only half what was needed to cover costs. Desperate to 'preserve an aspect of success', the committee issued a statement saying, 'The present demand for tickets, although not heavy, is steady.'