Olympic sponsors unhappy about security

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By News Wires

BEIJING — China may be a land of a lot of people, but not at its Olympic Green.

Some big Olympic sponsors that invested millions of dollars to pitch their brands from elaborately constructed pavilions are fuming because access to the Green — usually the main focal and gathering point of most Games — has been strictly limited.

Citing security, Beijing Olympics officials have turned away droves of spectators who are curious to see the Green with day passes. For the most part, the only people who have been allowed inside are those with hard-to-get tickets to the venues along the Green.

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An armored personnel carrier sits at a gate of the Olympic green as paramilitary policemen walk by, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008. Organizers promised Tuesday to let more people into the tightly guarded Olympic Green after sponsors complained that security restrictions kept visitors away from their promotional pavilions, a marketing official said. (AP Photo/Oliver Multhaup)

Sponsors like Lenovo, Samsung, Adidas and Coca-Cola, have set up elaborate corporate “experiences,” complete with neon lights, giant-screen TVs and music acts.

But the crowds were sparse, even as the Games were in full swing.

The Olympic Green is a massive space that is surrounded by Olympic venues including the National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, and is the site of swimming, gymnastics, archery and many other sports. As the organizers intended, it is big — six times the size of the Green in Athens and three times the size of New York’s Central Park.

Several high-profile sponsors were expecting 200,000 visitors a day and instead have seen just 20 percent of that, making it very difficult to justify costs that surpass $150 million, according to people close to the situation.

Organizers promised Tuesday to let more people into the tightly guarded Green after sponsors complained that security restrictions kept visitors away from their promotional pavilions, a marketing official said.

Organizers agreed to give out passes to allow thousands more people on the Olympic Green every day after a meeting with International Olympic Committee officials, said Gerhard Heiberg, chairman of the IOC’s Marketing Commission. He said he had no details on exactly how many passes would be given out or who would receive them.

The complaints were especially sensitive for organizers because companies represented on the green are top-tier sponsors of both the IOC and the Beijing organizing committee. They include Japan’s Panasonic and watchmaker Omega.

The restrictions are the latest in a series of snags for sponsors that want to use the games, which finish Aug. 24, to promote their brands to Chinese consumers.

Sponsors faced lobbying by activists who wanted them to pressure Beijing over its rule in Tibet or to help stop bloodshed in Sudan’s Darfur region. Activists protested along the Olympic torch route abroad, and sponsors temporarily suspended marketing in China after the deadly May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province.

The corporate pavilions are inside the Olympic Green’s security cordon. By contrast, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, pavilions were outside the central security zone and visitors without tickets could reach them by undergoing a brief check.

Authorities are eager to prevent both possible terror attacks and protests by activists over Tibet, human rights and other issues. Security issues grew after an American was stabbed to death and his wife injured Saturday in an attack by a Chinese man in Beijing.

The bomb that disrupted the 1996 Games went off in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park.

The restrictions meant the plaza in the 1,000-acre green had just 2,000 to 3,000 visitors at a time in an area that could hold as many as 15,000.    Around the Rings, a Web site that follows the Olympics, called the empty plaza a “no man’s land.”

The green itself is three times as large as Central Park in New York City.

Heiberg said that once track and field events start Friday in the Bird’s Nest — the nickname of the National Stadium — there should be about 150,000 people a day passing through the green, an ample audience for sponsors.

Some companies had better luck outside the green.

Haier Group, a Chinese appliance manufacturer that is an Olympic supplier but not a sponsor, did not qualify for a space on the green. Haier put its display in a futuristic two-story domed structure in a Beijing park, where it has the benefit of being readily accessible to the public.