Olympic stadium

[leigull]

Cheers Mr Blobby, nice to see some pictures of it and hear how it's shaping up.

Agree that West Ham would regret moving there. Upton Park is a great stadium with a real atmosphere to it, they'd lose that completely if they moved to a bowl shaped ground like that. Not to mention all the empty seats. Really hope it gets turned into a cricket ground!

 

[leigull]

Personally, the whole of my family (5 different people) bid for tickets and we got none. I only know of one person who got a decent athletics ticket.

Considering how popular it is, that's hardly surprising is it?

 

[terryberry1]

I'm very underwhelmed at these pictures. The stadium looks very cheap and tacky. Would suit West Ham

 

[Superphil]

So how would you have done the ticket sale? What did you apply for?

For what it's worth, I applied for football at both Wembley and Coventry, and shooting in Woolwich.

I got 1 (pair) tickets for football at Coventry. I was "unsuccessful" with the application for football at Wembley and the shooting.

Shortly after this they release the 2nd batch of tickets, there were tickets available for both football at Wembley and also shooting at Woolwich. But, I was not allowed to apply on the 2nd batch as I was "successful" in the first batch.

That, to me and many others, is a ridiculous state of affairs. If the tickets are still available second time round, then why didn’t I get them when I applied for them first time around?

There may well be 2 wasted empty seats at the Ricoh sometime in August as I have lost all the enthusiasm I had for it.

 

[Tooting Gull]

There may well be wasted empty seats at the Ricoh.

No change there then.

But you have very accurately described why the process was shite. How any 'event professional' got paid to come up with it is astounding.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

The public sale turned into a game for the rich. The public were told not to bid for more than you could afford but this wasn't accurate. It turned out that the ticket money was NOT automatically removed from bank accounts and those that were awarded tickets were able to pick and choose. It became quite obvious by the second round of bidding that those who gambled with money they probably did not have were at an advantage to those who stuck to the rules. The more money you gambled , the more chance of winning.

Personally, the whole of my family (5 different people) bid for tickets and we got none. I only know of one person who got a decent athletics ticket.

Wrong i'm afraid. Anyone that succesfully won a ticket had their accounts debited for the money those tickets cost. Are you saying that LOCOG should have said to the public to bid for as much as you want even if you can't afford it?

Again, how would you have done it?

All of your family will have priority in the next round of sales (probably later this month) which will include a lot of athletics tickets.

 

[Storer 68]

Went in January (perk of the job) and its a very dull, fuctional run of the mill stadium. No eye catching architecture to impress anyone. - bit like comparing St Mary's (v.dull but works), with Falmer (eye catching but holds less and cost more) . if you want to see how difficult it is to make an Olympic stadiujm viable after the games just look at the problems that Sydney had with theirs after the (generally accepted) most successful and iconic games

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

For what it's worth, I applied for football at both Wembley and Coventry, and shooting in Woolwich.

I got 1 (pair) tickets for football at Coventry. I was "unsuccessful" with the application for football at Wembley and the shooting.

Shortly after this they release the 2nd batch of tickets, there were tickets available for both football at Wembley and also shooting at Woolwich. But, I was not allowed to apply on the 2nd batch as I was "successful" in the first batch.

That, to me and many others, is a ridiculous state of affairs. If the tickets are still available second time round, then why didn’t I get them when I applied for them first time around?

There may well be 2 wasted empty seats at the Ricoh sometime in August as I have lost all the enthusiasm I had for it.

Because the session and ticket you applied for at Wembley and the shooting was sold out. Are you saying that LOCOG should have taken your money and given you a ticket for a date and time that you didn't apply for?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Considering the Birds Nest stadium used 4x as much steel in it's construction ( and there has been a MASSIVE hike in steel prices since it was constructed, so adjusting 2008 construction costs for inflation won't tell the whole story ) and spends 99% of it's current life empty and the other 1% as a tourist attraction, I'd say that making the design as efficient as possible and functional is probably much better for the environment. Don't forget the design is meant to allow for the whole of the top tier to be removed and replaced with a more permanent smaller structure after the games.

You can call it boring if you want, but the alternative you're after is an extravagant and wasteful white elephant - at a time of public spending cuts I'm sure the Govt. would be really happen to find themselves with an unexpected massive spend to bail out the inevitable cost overrun. Tbh I'm quite happy with the idea of an old style massive bowl as that's one type of stadium that we've never really had in this Country, other than White City and the Old Wembley, neither of which are still around.

I agree with a lot of what you say, the financial and environmental costs are obviously hugely important. But once you commit to hosting the Olympics, you're showcasing Britain. The stadium should be something iconic and memorable. We have some great architects in this country, and I'm sure that we could have produced something more interesting and exciting.
Look at the velodrome, the aquatics centre, the basketball arena...all fantastic designs imho. To me the stadium looks cheap and out of place.

 

[Notters]

When Man City took over the commenwealth stadoum they dug out the original pitch and track and added a new "lower" tier to bring people closer to the new sunken pitch and increase the capacity up from 30,000. Would West Ham want to add to the 80,000 seats?

Eh? I'm sure they made it smaller, not bigger?

 

[Notters]

Upton Park is a great stadium with a real atmosphere to it

Genuinely the least atmosphere of any 10,000+ stadium I've ever been to on the three occassions I've been.

 

[yxee]

Eh? I'm sure they made it smaller, not bigger?

I think they made it a larger capacity by digging down. The equivalent idea for the olympics stadium, I thought, was to remove the upper tier and dig down to create a new lower tier. The capacity would probably end up lower than 80,000 and it would be a decent football venue. IMO the best solution but always going to have Seb Coe and Co wanting a proper large athletics track.

 

[Falkor]

No change there then.

But you have very accurately described why the process was shite. How any 'event professional' got paid to come up with it is astounding.

It was exactly the same process for Sydney

 

[HawkTheSeagull]

I got a ticket at the 2nd time of trying for the football at Wembley as i knew i had no chance in getting one for any other event - will probably be stuck with Uganda vs Fiji or something though, but might even get GB.

 

[Superphil]

Because the session and ticket you applied for at Wembley and the shooting was sold out. Are you saying that LOCOG should have taken your money and given you a ticket for a date and time that you didn't apply for?

I believe you are wrong. The dates I applied for were all available on the 2nd batch. I know this, because I very much wanted to attend the shooting, and on the first batch applied for all the options in the shooting finals. There were then tickets available for the shooting finals, the same ones I applied for, on the 2nd batch. They were also available from www.dertour.de the German Olympic ticket site, sadly I didn't find out this in enough time to get an account opened and application in with them (they still have tickets for the pistol shooting final but that's not my thing).

LOCOG have arsed this up, why they felt the need to have such a complex arrangement I don't know, all I wanted was 3 tickets, I applied for many more than that, and got one. They then put the same tickets I had applied for on sale in the 2nd batch, and prevented me from applying for them.

 

[brightn'ove]

Eh? I'm sure they made it smaller, not bigger?

i don't really understand how it held 80,000 before it was converted, they finished the stand behind the goal and added another tier, yet the capacity went from 80,000 to 50,000

strange

 

[34064 Fighter Command]

I agree with a lot of what you say, the financial and environmental costs are obviously hugely important. But once you commit to hosting the Olympics, you're showcasing Britain. The stadium should be something iconic and memorable. We have some great architects in this country, and I'm sure that we could have produced something more interesting and exciting.
Look at the velodrome, the aquatics centre, the basketball arena...all fantastic designs imho. To me the stadium looks cheap and out of place.

That's all very well but London already has 20 odd stadium facilities of one sort or another for just about every other type of sport and many of them are already iconic in one way, shape or form. Plus I think London as a City is itself famous enough and doesn't really need a 'showcase' as such. Unlike many recent venues, it is a capital, not just a provincial city ( like Atlanta, Barcelona or Sydney ).

The Stade de France is only viable because it's used for Football, Rugby and Athletics. London already has Wembley and Twickenham, so there's simply no requirement for an 80,000 venue for these sports.

If you want to come up with something that is iconic and memorable do you think that London Council Taxpayers should be forking out Wembly Stadium type money ( £ 783 million at current prices ) when they're cutting services left, right and centre, or the £ 486 million of the current stadium. Where do you think this extra £ 300 million should come from and how many libraries / museums / hospitals / schools do you want closed to pay for it?

 

[TimWatt]

Olympic Stadium

I went on Saturday (taking photos at the National Lottery fun run) and I thought the stadium fairly impressive, on the inside at least.

It's fairly open to the elements, with a marquee like roof, but I think it will provide a good atmosphere for The Games.

There were only about 5000 people in the stadium, and cold and draughty, but the acoustics of the bowl like stadium made these people sound fairly loud...

The stands seem to be made in Spurs colours! (white concrete and roof structure, plus some of the seats, black supporting structure and most seating).

I was surprised that is more like the MCG in dimensions than Wembley or other stadia - being fairly bowl like, much wider than other athletics stadiums (with a big spare area between the 100m straight and seating).

I guess it's something of a Stadio Olympico - which is the point in being a national stadium NOT for football. Which should be whole point of it.

It looks functional and unexciting but definitely modern. Not at all awe inspiring like the Stade de France, but I think it will have a better atmosphere.

As for area around it - complete wasteland. From Statford Station you need to walk past M&S, John Lewis etc. so it might as well be the Westfield 2012 than London Olympics.

Crowd management with only 5000 was awful I thought. There a dual carriage way between the site and the station and they kept the traffic with priority!

 

[leigull]

Genuinely the least atmosphere of any 10,000+ stadium I've ever been to on the three occassions I've been.

Been pretty good the few times I've been there! Moving to Olympic Stadium is only going to lower the atmosphere though.

 

[swindonseagull]

Why do you feel the need to post that on a thread talking about positive activities going on there?

its called freedom of speech