Apologies after ticket offers sent to dead people

MELBOURNE, Mar 10 (Reuters) With 12,000 tickets still unsold for next week's Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, organisers have had to apologise after invitations to buy tickets were inadvertently sent to dead people.

Games officials sent out 150,000 invitations this week to people offering them the chance to buy tickets to what the letters described as ''Melbourne's most spectacular event ever''.

The tickets cost between 420 Australian dollars and 590 Australian dollars.

The letters were sent based on information contained in a database purchased recently by Games organisers, officials said.

Melbourne 2006 chief executive John Harnden told local media that some of the information on the database was out of date and an undisclosed number of letters were mistakenly sent to dead people.

He said Games organisers had apologised after complaints were received from relatives of some of the dead people.

''It was not our intention and, on behalf of the organisation, we would just like to say we are sorry,'' Harnden told The Age newspaper.

A spokeswoman for the Games said on Friday 12,000 tickets remained unsold for the opening ceremony.

The Games have been dogged by sluggish ticket sales, with seats still available for the closing ceremony as well as some sessions of athletics and rugby sevens.

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