National News
Fan Fests a huge success
2010-06-30 21:58
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Johannesburg - The FIFA fan fests were a huge success with attendance approaching the four million mark as the World Cup entered the quarter finals, FIFA said on Wednesday.
Spokesperson Nicolas Maingot said about 1.7 million people had attended fan fests in South Africa, while more than two million had attended in Paris, Rio, Berlin, Rome, Mexico and Sydney.
"We are definitely happy with the fan fests. It was a tremendous success in Germany with 18 million visitors," he told journalists at Soccer City.
"And we don't measure success in terms of numbers, we measure success in terms how people feel when they are there."
Socialising was the key element to the success of the World Cup and the fan fests provided an "excellent platform" for that.
For those wanting to see the game live at the stadiums, Maingot said a further 500 category one tickets were available for the game between the Netherlands and Brazil in Port Elizabeth.
There were 1 200 premier tickets available for the match between Uruguay and Ghana in Johannesburg and 300 tickets for Germany against Argentina in Cape Town.
They would go on sale on Wednesday evening.