Commonwealth Games boss insists ticket sales are 'on track' despite fears over empty seats

Published: 16:18, 23 July 2026 | Updated: 16:18, 23 July 2026 Commonwealth Games bosses have insisted ticket sales are on track to meet their expectations amid fears grandstands could be left with empty seats. Tickets could still be bought for Thursday night’s opening ceremony less than 12 hours before the grand event featuring the King at Glasgow’s Hydro arena. And there were many other events which still had tickets available, with interest in this edition of the Games seemingly far below that experienced the last time the city held them in 2014. Organisers will be hoping for a surge in demand following the televised opener, as they insisted there was a ‘buzz’ in the city. Phil Batty, chief executive of Glasgow 2026, said: ‘Ticket sales for these Games are on track for the plan that we set out when we began preparing to host the games.’ During Glasgow 2014, some 96 per cent of tickets were sold, with the event hailed as one of the best ever in the history of the Games. Mr Batty, who was speaking before the opening event featuring Olympic legend Chris Hoy and Scots singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, said there was a ‘balance between the tickets that are bought upfront before the event has begun and those that are bought during the course’ of the event. He said they have sold out track cycling, had a ‘few hundred tickets left for the morning heats in the swimming pool’, and had flogged ‘more tickets for netball than have ever been sold in Scotland in the history of time’. Mr Batty insisted organisers felt ‘really confident that we’re going to have electric venues’ over the course of the competition. Aaron Wilson of Australia during his men's singles match against Jason Greenslade of Guernsey on Thursday And the Glasgow 2026 boss said the games would be delivered on time and within its fixed £160million budget. He said: ‘We still want to fill all of our venues over the course of the competition itself, and we feel really clear of the plan to do that over the course of the next 10 days of sport. ‘And we’re balancing that with the sports that are already sold out and the sports that we’ve got capacity in. ‘We’re really confident that we will achieve all our goals in relation to tickets, but also that we’ll create the environment for spectators that allows athletes to compete at their absolute best on the field of play.’ The Games are on a much smaller scale than in 2014, with Glasgow picking up the slack after the Australian state of Victoria dropped out amid spiralling costs. Katie Sadleir, the chief executive of Commonwealth Sport, said this event would be ‘something that is really, really special’ and the ‘excitement is building’. The New Zealander, who won a medal at the 1986 Edinburgh games in synchronised swimming, said: ‘A couple of journalists have asked me: “Is there buzz in the city?” ‘I said you only have to walk through the streets, see people pointing at people in tracksuits of different colours and wondering where they’re from and is it okay to talk to them?’ Some of the world’s top athletes are not at the Games, with one notable star missing being Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson. But Donald Rukare, president of Commonwealth Sport, said: ‘Yes, some of the top athletes might not be here, but we believe several champions are going to be born.’