The name "London 2012" is photographed with the Olympic Rings in the background outside the press... 
(Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
An extra 300,000 tickets will be available for the London Olympics, bringing the total to 8 million, and organizers promise that venues will be "packed to the rafters" in 2012.
While tickets won't go on sale until next year, organizers set up a Web site Monday — http://www.tickets.london2012.com — for fans to indicate which events they would like attend. The information will help organizers gauge the demand and set ticket numbers and prices accordingly.
Tickets will go on sale by lottery in the spring of 2011.
The process got off to a fast start, with 40,000 people registering in the first four hours, reinforcing organizers' hopes that the Olympics will be sold out.
"It's absolutely our ambition to have this full," London organizing committee chief executive Paul Deighton said. "It seems to me what we've got on offer here is a spectacular proposition. We're really hoping to get there."
Ticket prices and availability won't be announced until later this year after the sports competition schedules and venues have been set.
Deighton said the London organizing committee, or LOCOG, would uphold its promise of making the games "accessible and affordable."
"We will stand by what we always said: There will be millions of affordable tickets available to the British public," he said in a conference call with reporters. "Our commitment is to have our venues packed to the rafters with sports fans."
After problems with empty seats at the 2008 Beijing Games, London is considering shorter competition sessions and a ticket-return policy similar to that used at the Wimbledon tennis championships.
Along with the extra 300,000 tickets for the Olympics, an additional 500,000 will be made available for the Paralympics, which will have 2 million tickets available.
Of the total 10 million tickets, organizers said 75 percent will be sold directly to the public in Britain and the European Union.
