With the ticket sales for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) being somewhat slow, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) plans to help boost ticket sales by launching a public awareness campaign in all cities hosting the event, which is scheduled to kick off in less than two weeks.

The planned campaign, to be launched by LOC on Tuesday, comes in the wake of the fact that rate of Afcon ticket sales in Port Elizabeth and Rustenburg has been notably slow; a situation which is apparently worrying the event's organisers.

While Afcon marketing and advertising has already begun, and overseas media too has arrived, the Rustenburg LOC has revealed that just around 5,000 tickets have been sold thus far, from a possible total of 200,000 tickets.

However, with the forthcoming launch of the public awareness campaign, the Afcon organizing authority is hopeful that there will definitely be an improvement in ticket sales in the coming days, especially since soccer activities will be arranged across the province to mobilise communities to purchase tickets.

Noting that "there is no direct answer to the cause" of the slow rate of ticket sales till now, LOC spokesperson Sipho Sithole said about the forthcoming campaign: "The host cities, working with the LOC, Sport and Recreation, Brand SA, GCIS and CAF social partners will be implementing a massive public awareness programme starting from 8 January at all the host cities to drive ticket sales."