It's the Alinsky way.
Does it? Evidence? The much-reported problems have either been trivial or have been swiftly rectified by good contingency planning. As for empty seats, this has been feature of all modern Olympics, Beijing in particular, and it's been a major objective of LOCOG to minimise these. I've no doubt they will succeed. What neither LOCOG nor the IOC can control is no-shows on seats pre-allocated to the various national federations.
It's inevitable that local sales will reflect the popularity of each particular sport in the host nation. For instance, it's not surprising that all seats for every event at the velodrome were sold out within days, since Britain currently heads the world rankings in cycling and completely dominated the track cycling events in Beijing. Handball, however, is a sport almost completely unknown in Britain, so selling those seats will undoubtedly be more difficult.
Incidentally, over a million people watched yesterday's road race from the roadside; and in the torch relay in the six weeks prior to the games, the Olympic torch was carried to every corner of the UK by thousands of athletes, and was cheered from the roadside by an estimated 2.9 million spectators.
For two views on how the Games are going I offer you Rogge, head of the IOC, who has called the London Games the best prepared ever; and my wife, who is a Gamesmaker (volunteer steward) at the Olympic Park and who tells me the atmosphere and general efficiency are equally superb.