Tickets for the London 2012 Olympics have gone on sale, 500 days ahead of the event.

2012年伦敦奥运会门票已经开售，距离开幕式还有500天时间。

Some 6.6 million tickets are available from the London 2012 website over a six-week period and organisers say all applications will be treated equally.

Prices range from £20 to £2,012 and oversubscribed（过多订购的） events will be decided¹ by a ballot².

The ticket website initially³ failed to process the orders of people whose Visa card expires（到期） before August.

Ticket prices

Lord Coe, the chairman of London 2012, said: "If you look at the way we have put the price points together I think we've done that in a really smart way. I think those prices are affordable⁴.

"Yes, the big ticket events are always going to be the big ticket events, but there are plenty of opportunities to see the big stars at the lower price points."

Lord Coe said he was confident the Games would be a sellout.

Organisers said they were confident they had done everything they could to avoid the website crashing as people log on for the first time to buy tickets.

The main factor is the establishment of a 42-day sales process which means each application between now and 26 April will be treated in exactly the same way.

People can also apply using a paper form obtainable from branches of Lloyds TSB in England, Bank of Scotland in Scotland or libraries in Northern Ireland between 15 March and 25 April 2011.

When the website did open, people applying for tickets found the website could not process their orders if their Visa card expires before August.

A London 2012 spokesman said Visa was working on this problem: "What Visa is trying to do is to ensure that more people will be able to apply by bringing this threshold（门槛，极限） forward so that it will only be if your card expires before the end of June that the site will not process your order.

"It means if your card runs out in July you will still be able to apply, but you will just need to come into the process a bit later."

Sean and Jacqueline Burke, from Southwell, Nottinghamshire, reported some problems using the website.

Mr Burke told BBC News: "We have managed to book tennis and athletics⁵ and one of the cycling events but we have had one or two problems with the website crashing. Logistically it's quite tricky⁶ at the moment."

Half a billion pounds is forecast to be raised from ticket sales.

Several events will be free, such as the marathon, and 2.5 million tickets will be available for £20 and under. Others start at between £30 and £50.