On 23 August 2016, Greg Nugent, who was head of marketing of the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics, began a campaign on Twitter known as "#FillTheSeats", encouraging users to donate money to supply local youth and people with disabilities with tickets to the Paralympics. Nugent began the campaign after noticing the large number of empty seats at competition venues during the 2016 Summer Olympics. Following endorsements of the campaign by prominent figures, such as British band Coldplay (which performed the closing ceremony in 2012), it raised over US$15,000 by 30 August. On 31 August 2016, the IPC and the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee announced that it would officially back the #FillTheSeats campaign, and set a new goal of $300,000—which the IPC said could be used to fund the distribution of 10,000 tickets, along with food and transport, for the opening ceremony to Brazilian scholars and disabled peoples.