Olympic Tickets - A proper Brit Stitch up..

[nicko31]

I was really up for it and was prepared to sacrifice holidays for the next couple of years, applied for £5600 of tickets, and got £116 worth (just 2% of my request).

I was lucky enough to attend the Sydney Olympics in 2000 whilst I was living there. All the tickets I applied for I got, mainly because Australian residents were given priority. The Mens 200m final (A class ticket) cost £60, in London its £450 (only 12 years later).

Why not priority for our population? The whole ticketing process is a disgrace in pretty much every department..

 

[Gazwag]

There must have been a fairer way.

Fair play to you for risking £5.6k, which you may or may not have been able to afford if you had the lot, but, I'm sure many people would have gone for £1,000's of requests in hindsight.

If its about 2% take up then I won't get any because I only risked about £700.

Maybe if people had to pay up front first there would have been more tickets to go around as people would have risked less.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

If you applied and didn't get tickets in the draw then you get first dibs on the tickets that are left. It appears that the vast majority of people applied for the same events (big sports, key events like 100m etc) so in fact many many sports will have lots of spare tickets. And because you applied for the first round you'll get first choice on the next round. Will be less popular sports or earlier rounds, but what the heck - I'll be trying to get some. Doesn't come round very often.

 

[Triggaaar]

Why not priority for our population?

Were the whole world able to apply with us, with no priority to Brits? I assumed it was UK addresses only, but didn't think about it. I doubt I'll get any, only applied for 5 events.

 

[nicko31]

Were the whole world able to apply with us, with no priority to Brits? I assumed it was UK addresses only, but didn't think about it. I doubt I'll get any, only applied for 5 events.

My understanding is UK had same priority as the rest of the EU. So we're competing with 450m people instead of 65m, no wonder its allocation is so scaled back. This country to covering the costs, the least we should get a fair go with the tickets

 

[Roadrunner]

Looks like I've got £44 worth out of a £750 application, so a pretty poor return. I deliberately avoided the high profile events as well, as I thought I'd have a better chance. So much for that theory.

 

[Gazwag]

Were the whole world able to apply with us, with no priority to Brits? I assumed it was UK addresses only, but didn't think about it. I doubt I'll get any, only applied for 5 events.

There is a german site for example where you could get tickets for actually events

Tickets are available from here

Tickets - Olympische Spiele 2012 - London - DERTOUR

see BBC News - London 2012: Olympics ticket firm

 

[drew]

The fairest way would have been for people to prioritise their ticket requests so that if you got your first priority tickets then you didn't get any more until everyone else had got some. So for example, you got your first priority tickets then if your second priority tickets were over subscribed, they first go to people who had them as their priority one and then to the people who had them as their second priority but who didn't get tickets in their first priority and so on. That way they could ensure that more people get to see events rather than a lucky ballot. You could have a situation where people that applied for £1,000s of tickets could get all their selection and those that couldn't risk applying for that many don't get to see anything!

 

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

The UK had to have the same priority as the rest of the EU, and if you think that is a joke, then what about the language of the games being French!

 

[Deleted member 18477]

the fairest way would be to give tickets to those who have a british passport, were born in the UK and have at least 1 parent who is english, welsh, scottish or N.Irish!!

ticketing systems are a joke for every high profile sporting event anyway. champions league final and fa cup final... How many ACTUAL fans attend? 50%? that will prob shrink to about 20% in a few years.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

The language thing is a complete irrelevance anyway, it's not like you're going to miss out on understanding things simply because of that.

There will be plenty of things you can see for free, there's no need to miss out completely even if you didn't get the tickets you specifically wanted.