Accredited seating is part of the landscape at all the venues. It is a place that just about anyone with olympic credentials can go and watch the events. This allows other competitors, judges, Int’l Olympic Committee ansd London Olympic Committee members a place to sit and watch the events.
I worked a venue at the Atlanta Games, and same deal there. Though my creds allowed me to watch hundreds of events, I ended up only seeing maybe 3 hours of competition during the entire 12 day period, was way too busy working to sit and watch. I even had tickets offered to the opening and closing ceremonies, but had too much to do.
Folks using these seating areas do not use them for the whole day, they come to see one performance, and may only use the seats for 20 minutes or so.
As the games wear on, expect these seating areas to be more and more vacant unless there is a well hyped contest taking place.
“I worked a venue at the Atlanta Games...”
One of my bigger regrets was not attending the Olympics in Atlanta. I was on vacation in Chattanooga, only a few hours north.
I considered changing my schedule of visiting some Civil War battlefields and driving down and taking in an event. I wasn’t sure which one and I wasn’t quite sure where I needed to go.
Even if I found tickets for an event, it probably would have been a water polo game between Malaysia and Ecuador. But at least I could have said that I had attended an event.
OTOH, my luck would have been that I got stuck in traffic somewhere in Atlanta and have driven down there for nothing.