Ticket controversy creates London 2012's first hurdle

i think that the ticeting process was not thought about carefully enough surely london 2012 organisers would have seen this happening. I can't think of a fairer way of distributing the tickets but when some people who are not big fans of a sport get tickets that other sports fans would give a lot to have it just doesnt seem right especially when 55% of people got absolutely nothing

For the Olympics to inspire and create a legacy, LOCOG must have wanted to get as many people as possible to see events. This they have signally failed to do. If you have one family with tickets to four events, and three families with tickets to none, you have not maximised participation. If the lottery process for an individual event had included a simple check to see if the applicant had already got tickets to a different event, already selected, and excluded them, then that would have been achieved. And now, Lord Coe says that is his aim for the second round. It should have been built into the selection process for round one. Missed opportunity. And yes, I am bitter that I applied for 20 events, only one final, risking £3,500, and got nothing.

This article begins so well...and then seems to justify the utter lack of transparency around the ticketing process, which a joke. Where else can you 'buy' a product without knowing what it is, where it is or when it is? Surely we can do better that this?

Ticketing process has been an absolute disgrace; I applied for 8 tickets in a lot of the less popular events and ended up with nothing. Hearing people who applied for 10 to 20 thousand pounds worth of tickets just drives me up the wall!

Why did they not put a limit on the amount of tickets you can apply for per household I do not know. Whats the point of having the games in London if the majority of the city's residents (like myself) cannot attend!

Post 3 hits the nail on the head. It is a customer's right to know exactly what they are bidding for. When I play the lottery I know my chances of winning the jackpot. If I bid for an item on auction sites I know what I'll get and what I must pay BEFORE the money leaves my account. LOCOG should offer a full refund to anyone who wants it over this fiasco.

That's only half the story though, exactly why were there substantially fewer tickets on sale? Either LOCOG put the correct figures out and the media misinterpreted them (and the latter never admit it's their fault so shifting the blame to LOCOG) or, more likely, the sponsors demanded a greater share of the tickets to go to corporate heads and important games. Something tells me despite Boris Johnson's failure to get tickets he'll still be at the important events.

It is a little disappointing to miss out on tickets. To put in for so many and not get 1! What is the ratio of public tickets to sponsors?
Will West Ham have the same problem with tickets?
Hammers to bounce back

Everyone who wanted a chance at getting the tickets knew what the process was before they bid, had they thought that it was first come first serve they would be sorely mistaken. From what i know each event was drawn individually so in my opinion it is wrong to say that some people had more chance of getting a ticket and that others had no chance as if someone bids for 20 sessions then yes overall they have a greater chance but per session they have equal chance as the other bidders.

It seems logical that only half the stadium should be on sale for the 100m final as it will only happen on one side and you don't want to be on the far side. Also it would be very hard for LOCOG to justify giving every ticket for the final to British persons, who were the only people able to bid from what i gather, of course they were not going to sell all of them to us.

I feel that the writer of point 5 has made some rather harsh comments, firstly they know what they will get if they get anything during this process LOCOG are not going to give you something you don't want. Secondly they won't charge you more than what was quoted to you, and thirdly why should they give you a refund on something you wanted. The process was hardly a fiasco, it would have been a fiasco if they had given everyone who had bid a ticket.

No surprise here. Clearly its going to be the same rich people going to all the main events - how ANYONE can be allowed to ask for 1000's of pounds worth of tickets is beyond me. If youre getting men's 100 metre final tickets then why should you get equal opportunity for the opening ceremony for example? Those who get tickets for a few of the biggest events should be put at the bottom of the pile for other big events. Not exactly capitalism at its finest.

However, I don't think 4 tickets per allocation is too many, as there are so many families for example, and whether that 4 went to that family or, say, two sets of two people, doesn't really make a difference.

My own personal experience is that i didnt get any of the tickets i asked for. Im gutted, and dont really see how the Olympics coming to London benefits me now. Im not a Londoner (though dont live far away) so economically wont benefit, and watching it on TV was what i did in 2008! Itll simply disrupt my travel into and out of London even more than it already was!

What a crock!! first - how did visa get round the monopolies commission after only accepting visa payments? second - why were the 'chosen few' given a second opportunity to buy when the initial payment bounced back. third - how did they beat the distant selling act. and my last complaint --- I applied for accessible seating as i am disabled, and have failed in my application, but have been told i can apply again next week ... not a good advert for the paralympic games or sport for everyone. maybe the disabled seating takes up too much space where they could put high price tickets. glad visa dont own a brewery!!!!!!!!!

I really would love people to get off Lord Coe's back. I agree entirely with what he said that a ballot was the fairest way to distribute tickets. Although I do agree that taking money and not letting people know what they got was a shocking policy. The allocation of the tickets does leave alot to be desired for, but I do firmly believe that the majority of tickets for all the sports were for the public and public only. Everyone who missed out will be disappointed and I was gutted when I found I didn't get my allocations. But like he said, he is determined to get tickets to everyone. I am not gonna be downhearted, I am gonna have another go in the second chance ballot and hopefully I will be sucessful this time. I got my rugby world cup tickets in a second ballot, I might get olympic tickets in a second ballot. And if any remaining tickets comes up, I will be waiting in the wings to snap them up. The olympics is the biggest sporting event in the world and I will try my damndest to get a good set of tickets for the games.

Seems to me a clear case of incompetence, moral bankruptcy and corruption - Who is getting ALL the tickets - it sure ain't the public is it - I want to know how many tickets are being gifts to the favoured? 80,000 seat capacity - but only 20,000 tickets for the men's 100m ??? 60,000 seats reserved for the fascists?

the trouble with this Olympics - and one reason everyone 'feels' something is not quite right about it - is that it is fast becoming all about the organisers, Coe and the cronies running the show - its about visa, the sponsors and the great and the good who are deemed worthy of 'free tickets'

It ain't about the Sport, it ain't about the Olympic spirit or traditions !


Well COE - its just a massive fail!

So many issues, and as many different opinions. Why don't we concentrate on one thing: a list of the 60,0000 people who got the 'other' tickets for the 100m final. Let's see the list, the REAL LIST, of exactly who will be there. If VISA are a main sponsor, of course they get some tickets as part of the deal. Let us know how many, for this particular event. I think 100 would be fair, but have a feeling that 1,000 might be more like it...
I'm sure it will make interesting reading, especially to those watching at home who didn't get any tickets.

the fact that he never had the balls to say sorry,reminds me more about Tony who....

So, WE will not have to pick up the bill for the Games.
I can`t quite get my head round that statement. This is after all "Ripoff Britain".

Let us wait until way after the event before coming to that conclusion.

Having not got any tickets in round 1 I was very disappointed but can not see how they might have come up with a better system to maximise ticket sales. Looking through the list of what is sold out or nearly sold out are events that I'm guessing only sold because of the process of applying for lots of tickets to try and get some.

The idea of not letting someone in the ballot if they had something else would not work unless you defined which order they were drawn in. E.g. if they did the archery before the athletics, would any one have applied for the archery? Nobody got any tickets in round 1 that they had not applied for, so yes it is annoying not to know which of the tickets you applied for you got, but they did not want to tell you, to stop you trying to back out if you only got some of the smaller events you went for.

I wondered whether during phase 1 they could have had on the events a guide to how many people had applied even as simple as a good chance, poor chance, no chance on each price band. However, all that would have meant is that people would have applied at the last minute.

Yes, it is very annoying that sponsors get lots of tickets, but they are paying more for them than public. If they had less sponsors, then ticket prices would have been more expensive than they were and that would have lead to more complaints. The LOC do have a task to maximise revenue as well.

So yes I'm gutted not to get any, will be trying in round 2, but struggle to see how they could have ensured most events sold out and did not have the empty seats like China other than the system they used.

I find the complaints about the process of allocating tickets a bit absurd. From the start we were told that there would be a lottery. Perfectly transparent. It stands to reason that those with vast amounts of disposable income will apply for as many as they can get. Those of us with little will risk what we can and probably not get a ticket. I would have loved to have had a ticket to one of the events I applied for. I didn't...and that was what I accepted....because from the start...it was transparently obvious how the process would work. Get over it!

"12.
At 03:10 18th Jun 2011, Indefatigably Pusillanimous Ghosts wrote:

the trouble with this Olympics - and one reason everyone 'feels' something is not quite right about it - is that it is fast becoming all about the organisers, Coe and the cronies running the show - its about visa, the sponsors and the great and the good who are deemed worthy of 'free tickets'

It ain't about the Sport, it ain't about the Olympic spirit or traditions !


Well COE - its just a massive fail! "

This - well said.

This process has shown why you should not allow a sportsman to run a national project.

The expectation that people should be charged for something before they even know what they're paying for was a disgrace and totally unnecessary.

Seb Coe is a disgrace to this country and a stain on the 2012 games. I can already envisage the outright sycophancy heading his way after the games but i hope he remembers that most people seem to hold him in contempt.

Like all major sports these days the number one, but blinkered, objective is to maximise revenue, which unfortunately means a large proportion of tickets being sucked up by VIP's, hospitality, etc. How much better it would have been to see stadia full to the rafters with genuine fans, who would give their eye teeth to be there, rather than those who drift away from their seats at all but the most compelling moments. What the organisers might lose in revenue they would more than make up with the atmosphere which those real fans would generate, ultimately making the Games much more exciting, memorable and successful.

Just a thought about ticketing: everyone has to have a credit card to purchase a ticket so if someone has achieved (strangely possible for some) a large number of ticket purchase successes then perhaps they are unlikely to clear their credit card balance at the end of the month. This would seem like a very good reason for the delay between taking the money and notification of which tickets have been issued.
As I see it, the credit card balance will include all "potential" ticket balances until the excess tickets are either returned or, in the case of keeping them all, the final amount is paid off, which is possibly even longer if you are a low-earner, and of course interest will be accrued for as long as that takes.
Can someone find out how much money the credit card company is making out of this very conveniently long-winded arrangement for ticket purchase? I think it would make particularly interesting reading.
I can think of no other reason for such a strange ticketing system.

If the 'legacy' of these games as was important as it should be, surely people affiliated/membership of sports clubs should have been offered the tickets for that specific sport first! Also is it a legal ballot if they kept the registration open for longer than they originally said for those that applied at the last minute, not in the rules of the 'Olympic Ballot Game' !!

The whole way the tickets were sold is a failure, why? Because 1. You had to have money, none were availabe for people with little money. 2. You had to have a visa card. 3. Selective VIP's will get tickets free even to the 100m event.....why? The Olympics is a people's event throughout the thousands of years it has ran, Lord Coe has lost it that special lnnk a real sports person should have with the public.

Oddward point 7

"It seems logical that only half the stadium should be on sale for the 100m final as it will only happen on one side and you don't want to be on the far side"

I think your logic is flawed.....the 100m final is not the only event that is scheduled for that session, someone who got tickets for the 100m will be on the wrong side of the stadium!!

Only half the tickets were on sale because of all the tickets that went to the hangers on/corporate people and guess which side of the stadium they'll probably be on?

The Olympics is nothing more than a jaunt for the various Olympic commitee's, arbite a very expensive one which we as London taxpayers now have to pick up for the next 10 years.

Totally agree with the lead article. We applied and zilch which to a degree we understand given the volume of applications but...walking on the hight street last week and we see in the travel agents Olympic packages with hotel and olympic events being sold?
How can this be right that this takes priority over "us". Please would an MP / BBC / paper under the freedom of information act request a full breakdown of the destination of all the tickets. Not by vague groupings but highlighting where travel agents and the like have managed to get tickets.

The ticketing process was indeed an embarrassing joke of a system. Particularly emphasised by the fact that several sites were in Germany were selling tickets in the normal way, at the same time, which was kept very quiet until outed by the Times. Seems bizarre that a nation not holding the games can run a far more effective and efficient system, than the one actually, supposedly, in charge. I see many people moaning that there was the option of applying for many tickets. I applied for almost 4k worth, and got 2 tickets worth 100 pounds, I still dont know what for. Another friend, applied almost 3k, and got two worth 60 pounds, and many who went for higher totals, but finished empty handed, so it seems that applying for many tickets, made little difference. Out of entire work and social circle, these are the only two successful applications I know of. I guess they were all sold in europe.

I got the following email yesterday from the Olympics people:
'Congratulations! We are delighted to confirm that you have been allocated some or all of the London 2012 Olympic Games tickets you applied for. You have been charged only for the tickets you have been allocated.'
Great you might say except NO money has been taken from my account. I applied for £3k worth of tickets and got nothing and then get emails like this. Anyone else experienced this?

Naturally people who haven't got tickets are going to be disappointed - myself included. That is the nature of a lottery unfortunately so I don't think the process of allocation has been too unfair other than too many tickets being allowed per individual and the nonsense around not letting people know what they have secured prior to 24 June.

However, what I do find unfair is the second phase element whereby those who received no tickets at all are the only ones entitled to the first come first served phase on 24 June. I accept that those who have secured a ticket via a ballot should be excluded but for the sake of buying one ticket to the preliminary football match in Coventry for which tens of thousands are available and no ballot was required, it excludes me from the next phase even though I wanted athletics tickets predominantly. These will clearly no longer be available by the time it is opened up to the 'lucky' people like me who secured a ticket so it looks like one football match will comprise my Olympics next year.

I'm sure Boris, the Royals and the PM all got tickets. I have a young family and I could not risk bidding £1000's so I bid for what i wanted to see and what I could afford to pay. I ended up with nothing. Maybe Steve Ovett would have been a better man for the job.

We live in a celebrity culture.We will be shown "famous" people in the stadium. On "Daybreak" Adrian Childs will ask boy bands how they liked the synchronised swimming.But I must admit one thing.On a flight from Luton to Nice the woman sitting next to me had got a ticket for the water polo. Up to now she is the only person I know that has got a ticket.The BBC and the rest of the Media are going to love the Olympics. We will have the same politically correct people in the studio.The Beeb will spend millions of pounds of our license fee money showing us the games.WE would of liked to have paid OUR money and gone there ourselves to SEE the events !!

People were always going to have a very small chance of getting to the big events. There's not a lot locog could have done about this, except the limit of 4 seats to a massive event ie 100m final should obviously have been 2.

It's dissapointing to hear that only 5.3 million were on sale, not 6.6. This means only around half of all seats were up for sale in this stage. If you take out the football, it's probably at least a million less than this, and people understandably aren't all that keen to see olympic football when we have the premiership and rest of football league most weeks of the year.

The issue of sponsors and corporate tickets is extremely annoying, but it's part of sport now. What will be unacceptable is if those seats are empty during the events, and they only take the seat for the one biggest race of the session.


Lastly, it will be interesting to see how long they leave it before slashing the football ticket prices in an attempt to fill the grounds up.

I have thought about this and there was a fairer way to distribute tickets, they could have puts sports/events into categories, for example you didn't need to be world's biggest psychic to think Athletics,Swimming, Diving & Cycling would be oversubscribed.
They could have said you are limited to four tickets in each sport to apply for, this way by applying for 100mtrs you couldn't apply for another night.
Category B sports on same process has as been done.
The problem with the system employed was the maximum spend, my wife baulked when it got to £900 even though i said there was no chance of getting all applied for, LOCOG at no stage gave an indication of what sports oversubscribed during app stage. We couldn't take the risk applying for more, luckily we got some tickets but it annoys me that that those who could potentially afford the massive outlay could get more tickets with knowledge LOCOG has said they could hand back in January.

@28 I agree, and I'm fairly sure they didn't make the rules for '2nd round buying' clear at the start. However, if you look at the sheet of what is left, it's nearly all nothing, or only category A and B, so you're not missing out on that much.
It will certainly be interesting to see how much interest there is in this 2nd round, as I feel that many of the disappointed only bid for big events, with unrealistic expectations, and I doubt they'll be back.

FACTS 1: Lord Coe stated in 2005 that there will be a lasting legacy (positive one) for ALL Londoners. 2. Lord Coe also said that ALL Londoners will have equal access to ALL Olympic events. 3. That no Londoner will be excluded based on class, race etc. 4. ALL Londoners will pay extra council tax to fund games for the SEVEN years leading up to it and after. So, why aren't there quotas for poor London kids and families? How was it FAIR and INCLUSIVE to demand that only people with a Visa card apply? Surely that EXCLUDES thousands if not millions of Londoners - who are paying for it. Just the usual. Rich guys from the Cotswold in their fifties with expensive suits and cameras watching Usain whilst strong young boys huddle in front of a tv on a council estate. And we wonder why little Jamaica produces better athletes than a country with 22 times its population. What a mess!

I applied for tickets to 1 qualifying session of the beach volleyball and for the Modern Pentathalon (all I could afford). Yesterday i got an email telling me I was unsuccessful (a simple check of my bank account had already told me that) & inviting me to apply for remaining the tickets. I checked the list and, lo & behold, there are tickets available to the very same sessions/events that I didn't get 1st time round in Crazy Seb's Wacky Olympic Lottery™. I'm pretty hacked off with this shambles and the wife is absolutely furious. If LOCOG can't even get something as simple as selling a ticket right, I dread to see what an international embarrassment the actual Olympics will be!

I've got £430 worth of tickets. The only problem i've got with it that amount went out of my account weeks ago and I still don't know what i'm going to see. I accept thats the system but to me this part of the system seems wrong.

Also as someone else mentioned emails are being sent round telling you about your ticket application and a chance to buy tickets in the 2nd round. However I've received this email and i've already got some tickets. Therefore if I was being particularly greedy I could apply for some more. I'm not going to as i'm not greedy and as i've seen all the people that want/wanted tickets and haven't got any yet. Can't say for sure if there's others like me with tickets, who've been invited to apply for more but will resist the temptation and let others have a go at getting them.

"Whats the point of having the games in London if the majority of the city's residents (like myself) cannot attend!"
Teritho I would be happy for you to get priority tickets as you live in London if only Londoners paid for the event, unfortunately we who live in other parts of the country who will not benefit from the event or the infrastructure that goes with it still had to pay our share,

many people like myself are now begining to think that the olmypics is more about money and sponsors than the sports itself. as for the ticket allocation, it is becomming like a dogs dinner... so perhaps those dissapointed people who were unable to get a ticket, will when the games start, be the lucky ones in the end, and can watch all the events they like on the tv in the comfort of there own homes... and as we all know there is a small thing perhaps people have forgotten is the .. british summer weather ..... it could rain for the whole of the games.........

dreadfully unfair system. it was not about maximising opportunity or participation, it was all about creating hype and generating revenue - at the expense of sports fans. many will feel ripped off, a too-small percentage will be happy.

the problem is that a high percentage of these tickets are going to be re-sold at big mark ups. People applied for tickets that they had no intention of ever using themselves ... its just an investment for them. sad, but difficult to do much about. How do Wimbledon do it ? That works pretty well.

To Andy (post 16), you said how could you decide what order to draw the different events in. My thought about counting out some people from a selection if they had already been selected would have worked if they had simply drawn them in the order of most over-subscribed first.

All i wanted was one ticket to say i have been to the Olympic Games in my own Country.
I applied for 8 events and got nothing whilst even choosing not the big sessions.
I also wanted to be a Volunteer yep you guessed it with no luck. I was proud of the Olympics being in London but not any more.
I can not be bothered even applying for tickets in the second round the a system that is a shambles and unfair whilst some get £11'000 of tickets and many others get nothing.
Coe and team do not deserve any recognition for there work from the Queen however i bet they will get there Knighthoods !!!!!

I did not bid on tickets as I would have no control over what event I would get to see (not that much of a problem) or what it would cost (a huge problem).
A comparison would be going online to your local supermarket and saying. "Here is my Visa number (assuming you have one of course). If my name comes out of the hat then please do my weekly shopping for me. I don't care what you get and you can let me know what it cost later. Oh, and after you have charged me you can deliver it a month or more later so I find out what I have got."
Total nonsense :(

@40 Wimbledon also use a ballot, as well as a very long queue, which isn't really possible for the olympics. They also have plenty of tickets for corporate and sponsors. The reason their system appears to work well is that people understand and accept their chances of ballot success are low.

Dear Lord Coe
You told the public that 'families would be welcome, tickets would be affordable and that you did not want empty seats', so tell me, why have you produced a fiasco with your ticket sales. As a local family we were excited about coming to see the Olympics. We applied but were not successful (as were every family we know who applied) and now you are offering us limited, overpriced tickets.
We hope you have many empty seats (Like Beijing) and will be letting the media know our thoughts so that your PR stunt of a second chance sales is a failure - much like our failure to secure some affordable tickets for the Olympics.
From a very disappointed family who were hoping to participate in what should have been a wonderful event for our Country but now is just an event for the super rich and the corporates! what a surprise!


- Show quoted text -

Lord Coe and company have had 3 years or more to get this right.

How could they get it so wrong?

Now it seems they are about to compound their mistakes in next Friday's 'fastest finger first' round of sales.
We must be a laughing stock so far as previous Olympic organisers are concerned.

What I find interesting is that I know of 23 people (including myself) who applied for tickets - all of us for at least two events, and yet none of us got any tickets. Does not seem very representative of 55%.

Even worse for me is that I know I have tickets, but each time I try to open an email from them I get a message to say it has been corrupted and can't be opened!

I dont have a problem with the corporate tickets, they are essentially the ones paying for the games. The problem comes when people are expecting millions of tickets to be available but then thinking they will be the tickets for certain events in smaller stadiums. I would wager alot of those available tickets are for the football which will not be sold

It is unfair that we have to decide which tickets will be used for children before we know what we have been allocated. I want to take my 5 year old grandson to something, and will likely end up paying full price for his ticket due to the lottery. If they genuinely wanted to offer concessions they would be available AFTER we knew what events we had been successfully allocated.

blahblahblah, all people do in this country is moan. A ballot was clearly the fairest way of distributing tickets and none of you lot have come up with a viable alternative. Also, to those complaining about corporate tickets, they are paying for a large proportion of the games and have any of you considered that they might actually be sports fans.

How come a lot of events have been sold out but you can still get tickets if you go via Thomas Cook and book a "package" with them? Surely all those tickets should have been in the Ballot. As for the comment, there are lots of tickets at all levels for the second ballot, the only cheap ones where for the wrestling!!!

A lottery on an event-by-event basis for each price category was the only fair way to sell tickets to the UK market and any other system would have been total chaos. You can't blame LOCOG if many events were massively oversubscribed. If 75-80% of people are bidding for the same hugely popular 5-10 events at the same price category then its easy to see why 1.2m missed out on tickets completely. eg) The odds on winning a ticket for the mens 100m ended up being 62/1. The cycling velodrome only has a 6,000 capacity so the chances of being successful were always going to be very small for a sport that enjoyed great success in 2008 and is one of the hottest tickets for 2012. Swimming only holds 20,000. If there are 250,000 ticket bids for each night of the finals then its easy to see again why so many missed out. I myself made a bid for every night of the swimming finals at price category C (£95) but was unsuccessful. While disappointed, as its a sport I follow 12 months of the year and not just 2 weeks every 4 years, I accept its the luck of the draw.

Where I do think they should have been more transparent was in releasing exactly how many tickets were available for each price category and a stadium seating plan with a colour-coded guide for the price categories. I know from experience in buying tickets at Wembley you get a colour-coded price guide for the seating plan and sometimes the £70 tickets are better than those selling for £100. That system would have allowed people to make more informed decisions when making their initial choices. But as far as the actual system for allocating tickets? I can't see how they could have done it differently.

#26
The Germans like every other country get a very small number of tickets to sell. If Paris had won the bid for 2012 then the French would be going through the lottery system for oversubscribed events while the British equivalent of Dertour would be selling a small fraction of tickets. What about the British fans you saw in Sydney, Athens and Beijing, how do you think they got tickets?.... well it was the same way customers can buy tickets for 2012 through Dertour in Germany and other appointed Authorised Ticket Resellers.

London's 2012 website even has a section listing the address, telephone number and email of every National Olympic Committee where tickets can be bought.

https://www.tickets.london2012.com/eligibility_p2.html

**
Residents of designated European countries
This is the ticket application website for residents of the countries listed below. If you are a resident of one of these countries, you are eligible to apply for tickets for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on this website:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Alternatively, you can apply for tickets via your local National Olympic Committee (NOC), National Paralympic Committee (NPC) or appointed Authorised Ticket Reseller (ATR). A full list of contact details for all NOCs and ATRs is given below. A full list of NPCs and their ATRs will be available later in 2011.

Here's a fairer way to have distributed the tickets:
Rank your events in tems or preference and state a maximum value of tickets you can pay for up to a maximum of say £3000. Top ranked events are then allocated and if you fail to get a ticket your second ranked events are allocated etc. until everyone has at least one ticket or the end of each applicants list is reached.

That way most people would have got to at least one event; ridiculous situation is that luck and how willing you were to risk a big bill were the most importatnt factors in the chosen method.

Have just gone to look at the second chance availability on the Olympic Ticket Website to find that for many of the sports advertised, tickets are showing as not being available. Try Badminton for example - there is a `not available' slash through every category ditto modern pentathlon, swimming and track cycling. It appears that your choices are hockey, football or spending a small fortune watching a sport you have no interest in (freestyle wresting anyone?)

All we really need to know is how many tickets were available fof all the major events. Then break down the figures to where they have gone ie; how many did the general public successfully buy? How many were given away and who received them. And this, the most questionable of all,including 'prestige' boxes how many were sold to private, corporate or otherwise to business etc?

A few FACTS:

You did not have to have a Visa card to apply, there was a way of applying using cheques or Postal Orders.

By Olympic rules a percentage of the tickets HAVE to go to other nations' sports bodies. So the local people never get all of the tickets. That is how British people can get to the Olympics in other parts of the world.

Even in 2011 there are still parts of this country that are only able to get very slow internet connections. These people will miss out completely on a first-come-first-served type of applications.

Some people do not even have a computer, so there were ways of making a paper application.

The chosen method was as fair as possible for as many people as possible.

I agree that there is no transparency in selecting the applicants. No proper reasons is given for those who tried to buy tickets. I agree that they cannot accommodate all into the gallery but this does not mean that they should not have transparency in selections of ticket buyers. Criterias are not clear we are told that it is chosen by kind of lottery like system. But I think the tickets might have ended up with agencies who tried to book in large numbers and got it by chances. The regional distribution would have been reduced to nothing for example from Midlands a few might have got chances while from another region such as London many would have got the chances. If this is the kind of case it is unfair.

I disagree strongly with some of the comments being made. You know what events you have applied for, and you know what price you have applied for them at. You cannot believe for one second that there are more tickets available than there applicants - this is an event that people from all over the world want to attend.
Further, I know of people who's children were competing in the Beijing Olympics and, despite the complaints made earlier by others about empty seats, they could not get tickets.
This is no different from any other major sporting event - there are always more people chasing tickets than there are tickets available.
If you want to take your chance then apply, but don't go off on one if you are unsuccessful.

Should have asked a journalist to write this piece.

Lord Coe's final comment in a recent radio intervierw was:

'The mathematics, I'm afraid, are stark.'

Apparently not stark enough to actually make them known to anybody though!

Come on, LOCOG, provide us with these 'stark' figures.

As we appear to be a nation of whingers I'll join the club. We (wife) and I live in Spain. We applied for £1200of tickets over 7 events for 15 sessions. We got nothing (not unusual).We are now told, for the second bite of the cherry, what we can apply for. 4 of those 7 events are completely sold out. Of the other 3 events a) the prices are sad to say beyond us,and b) we (as pensioners) could not afford to go to one event on 2/8 and then hang around until 10/8 for the next one. Very difficult situation for Lord Seb and Co, but like many previous contributors I would love to know how many tickets have gone to "celebrities" corporate bodies and other big wigs. Yes, I am very very disappointed, and I've joined the moaners!! Ah well just have to start saving for Rio. Hopefully we'll both be around!!

Why more than one ballot? ALL tickets are in the first pot. Applicants are entitled two bid for two tickets only, but are allowed ten preferences. If, after the one ballot, there are still tickets for the qualifying rounds of synchronised water equestrianism, then sells these on a first-come first-served basis.

I can understand that there would be a system that encouraged sales of tickets for the least popular events.However,the way it has been implemented has frustrated many people,it has become 'over complicated,and not transparent.For instance,it was not made clear that if you were awarded tickets that you did not want,they would only take them back if someone else wanted them,Only being able to use a 'visa' card was restrictive (it did not have to be a 'credit' card-I used my visa 'debit' card).
I was one of many 'winners' in that I got some of my bid,but why could they not confirm when they took my money which tickets I recieved?Yesterday I got an email telling me I had been successful in my bid (which I knew weeks ago because they took my money) but not which ones.As it happens,due to the tickets I selected,I had been able to work out which ones I had got (4 tickets each for two different venues).I only bid for what I was prepared to pay (about £300 worth) and have got £180 worth.
So I shall be going with my wife & 2 children to experience the olympics,and feel fortunate to have the opportunity.I am not sure how it would have worked limiting one 'session' to each applicant,because everybody would have bid for every session they would have wanted,as they would have known they would have only had to pay,at most for the most expensive session.There was always going to be those that missed out,but it could have been handled better.At least it wasn't 'first come first served',as that would have crashed all the websites,but effectively that is what is going to happen in the next bidding round

Although I appreciate that many people will be disappointed. I am concerned that if I go to Thomas Cook I can buy a package to a range of events. Presumably this means that a percentage of tickets were allocated to them? So I suppose this means if you have the money to pay you can still go to the Olympics? Perhaps the commercial aspect of the games has a higher priority than the true spirit of sport for all. Pity really, my childhood dream of diving in the Olympics may never have come to pass, but I really thought I would be able to see at least one round of ANY diving competition. OK better start planning for the next Olympics as the UK has let me, and many many others down.

It will be interesting to see how many of the corporate ticket holders are going to be at either of the diamond league events we have on this year. (I managed to get a ticket to the birmingham event for £9), or even know who is likely to get into the 100m final outside of Bolt and possibly Gay/Powell. The showcase events will be full of people who haven't paid and don't really care about the sport there attending but are going for 1 marquee name. I am gutted i wont no tickets from the £2000 i dared to bid but what is more gutting is who will have the tickets for those events. If i had lost out to other genuine fans it would make the loss easier to take.

I have lived in Stratford for over 15 years and over the past 4 years I have had to put up with constant disruptions in the form of congestion, noise & pollution.
I have also had to put up with rises in things such as council tax to pay for this event and now it seems that I cannot even get a ticket to attend the event which is happening on my own doorstep.
What makes this even more slightly hard to swallow is the fact that many of my colleagues from overseas, who I happen to work with, have all secured tickets for at least 2 of the events that they applied for.
How can the organisers claim that this a fair allocation of tickets when local people who have endured rate rises & daily disruptions have not had any form of priority in the ticketing process.

#42 the guy that got £11,000 of tickets has obviously bought the very expensive Category A and AA tickets for premium events. All it takes is 4 tickets to the Opening Ceremony at Category A to eat up £6,400. Another 4 tickets for him, the wife and 2 kids to see Phelps and Adlington on Aug 3rd would be another £1,800 if buying at Category A prices. There's £8,200 gone already. Would it be better that those tickets were unsold or went to corporate sponsors instead? If he's willing to pay those prices then good luck to him. £11,000 of tickets does not mean he's got hundreds of tickets, far from it. He may end up going to 3-4 events with 4 tickets to each event.

#43 ''A comparison would be going online to your local supermarket and saying. "Here is my Visa number (assuming you have one of course). If my name comes out of the hat then please do my weekly shopping for me. I don't care what you get and you can let me know what it cost later. Oh, and after you have charged me you can deliver it a month or more later so I find out what I have got."

You only bid for the events you want to see. Using your comparison you would be giving the supermarket a shopping list of 15 items you WANT to buy so saying you don't care what you get is totally wrong. If you ASKED for and went into a ballot for corn flakes, chocolate biscuits, coffee, chicken and toothpaste you will not end up with tea bags and tomato sauce. If money has been taken from your account then you know you will get one or more of the items you originally asked for. And while delivering those goods a month late would not be acceptable you cannot compare buying every day necessities to buying tickets for an event which doesn't start for another 13 months. It doesn't matter if you are told on Jun 1st 2011 or Jun 24th 2011 - you are not missing anything.

It seems that everyone is deliberately misunderstanding the point of a lottery. It also seems that you are only moaning because you are one of the unlucky ones. You all knew it was a lottery when you signed up and bid and it was done as fairly as it could have been - max 4 tickets per allocation and each individual event drawn separately to ensure everyone had the same chance each time. The hipocrisy also makes me laugh - people moaning about rich people getting all the tickets but then stating they bid for several events too. This is only the first round, there will be plenty more opportunities and those living in London will be given far more than those outside, which seems only fair. The idea that all the tickets should go to Brits is, quite frankly, ridiculous. This is an international event with very little British presence in some of the high profile events and so it is only fair that international people get a fair share of tickets as well.

In essence, stop moaning and get on with it. Do you moan everytime you don't win on the national lottery that it isn't fair?!

I know three families with Olympic tickets to the...football only, thus excluding them from the 2nd chance. Take out these & the percentage who got any tickets for proper Olympic events would be significantly lower.
If you follow the link from the Official site to the hospitality packages you can get tickets for any of the Athletics nights for only £4500 per person. I'm weighing up whether the cost would be worth it to allow my young family to visit the Olympic Stadium & experience something they would remember for the rest of their lives. So for me, wife & three kids would be a mere £22,500 for an evenings entertainment. What to do, eh?

We applied for £6,000 worth of tickets. We have been saving for this once in a lifetime event by not spending money on holidays or other luxuries. Not all the people that applied for lots of tickets are rich people, like it has been suggested here. We appear to have been very lucky in that we have got just under £1,000 worth of tickets.
Looking at the list of sessions sold out only one session we applied for isn't sold out, so we have probably got tickets for some hockey. We'll find out next week what else we have!

As for the sponsors and the 100m final. If the sponsors are sponsoring an event that they expect their customers to watch, attend and support, then their free-loading staff and guests can go to the same events as the public. Snaffling all the 100m tickets, and no doubt loads of the cycling, swimming and diving ones too, is pure greed and not in the Olympic spirit. The sponsors should have been in the ballot too.

Can someone please explain to me how it works that you buy tickets per event in the athletics? Does that mean that if you are lucky enough to get a ticket for the 100m final but not any events before or after, you get 10 seconds in the stadium before being chucked out again? And how exactly is the entire capacity crowd supposed to enter and exit the stadium after each event finishes?

1.8m applicants, 6.6m tickets, 54% successful = 8 tickets for every successful applicant. Instead of 3.6 tickets for everyone.

Unfortunately this raising our expectations is still occurring in the 2nd round application process. I've received an email encouraging me to apply and saying there are still lots of cheaper tickets, however, this raises our expectations again. How many pay your age tickets are there? If we apply for those are we less likely to succeed because demand will outstrip supply? If so, there have not been anywhere near enough cheaper tickets resulting in too many people being priced out of this national experience. It should not all be about the balance sheet.

Comparing the ticketing system to the National Lottery in essence is a bit absurd.
Lets not forget that the majority of this money came from or will be coming out of the UK taxpayers pocket!!!!

When demand exceeds supply, disappointment is inevitable, no matter what approach you take. Question then is, what is fairest way? A ballot seems sensible to me. And no, I didn't get any tickets.

@36 The 2nd chance is in 2 parts. Those who got no tickets in the ballots have from 24th June - 3rd July, then those that got some tickets have from 8th - 17th July.

It's all on the web site...

Big big disappointment. Once in lifetime disappointment!

For those of us (probably all of us in the UK) who have to pay for these games through taxes for the next however-many years there is a duty on the organisers to publish a list of all those who have got free tickets since they are effectively paid for by London and UK taxpayers.

#72 There are two sessions of athletics each day - morning heats and evening finals. Obviously the evening finals will be more popular and the ticket prices reflect that.

The mens 100m final is on the evening of August 3rd but its just one of many athletics semi-finals and finals that evening. You are not getting a ticket for the 100m only then everyone goes home.

The schedule for that night is:

Mens:
100m semi-finals and final
400m: semi-finals
1500m: semi-finals
3000m Steeplechase: final
High Jump: qualifying
Hammer: final

Womens:
400m: final
400m Hurdles: round 1
Triple Jump: final

There are also victory ceremonys from finals the night before including the women's 100m, womens marathon and men's long jump.

Here's the rub... If anyone at all has received tickets for more than one event while others have received nothing it isn't a fair system. It's that simple. I got nothing having bid for 4 events (would have been happy with one event) so now I have the mad scramble of the "first come - first served" second round where my computer will freeze....

Get a life, It doesn't matter. Big Event Tickets sell out shocker. What the hell did you think was going to happen?

The usual suspects are out again, unsold tickets? cant do thaT story, unfinished venues? cant find any story on that, all tickets sold out in an uprecedented rush for olympic tickets? Lets go for that and some how make it into a negative! Unbelievable!

What else lasts only 10 seconds yet still gets hundreds of thousands of people exited?
Answers on a postcard....

I have been supporting the bid since it started and was looking foward to once in a life time chance to attend the Olympics, do not have the cash of big corporates to chase them around the world. My wife and I want to see the long distance races but were trapped by a scheduling that puts all the good races on the same days/sessions. We received none of what we bid for and even second round has little of real interest.
Only 21,000 tickets for the main day on sale..what about overseas people? 61,000 to organisations who probably will not bother going but who will sell their tickets on the side and make a small fortune. These will not be the people's games we were promised they will just be a corporate millstone round the tax payers neck. The bankers got us into our current mess i faer the Olympics may just help keep us there. Lord Coe you should go.

....so - having discussd with the family what events we would want to try and see, applied and being told that we had nt secured any tickets - I now have a 2nd chance to get some tickets - funny thing is that I am being invited to apply for tickets for the events we selected 1st time round! Bizarre

It would be interesting for someone to actually post numbers and explain them as I'm confused a bit. From reading the various articles it seems that over 5 million tickets were available. Less than 2 million people applied but less than 1 million got tickets.

I think the main 'error' was to allow people to enter for multiple events - IMO once you'd been successful you should have gone to the back of the queue in some way for other events. Tricky to implement I know but the numbers seem to suggest that those who got tickets average 4 tickets for two events while I'm sure a lot of people who applied would have been happy with a pair of tickets.

Also, any idea when the second chance offers are supposed to turn up? The information about them is not so clear - I thought unsuccessful applicants were being contacted about this second round but I've heard nothing so far...

I applied for 8 different events , costing about £800 , never got a single ticket , im fed up about it yet i can pay a fortune through a travel agent to go and see an event. Seems all wrong to me .

I'm so glad that it looks as if almost every ticket will be sold. At least the London won't look as apathetic as some previous cities, where stands were half empty and 'rent-a-crowd' fans were shipped around in buses. LOCOG did a great job of selling the games to ensure this - such a good job that demand far exceeded supply. So there were always going to be a lot of people disappointed. And there were always going to be a fair proportion of those weeping, wailing and gnashing their teeth about how unfair it was.

Face the facts - you'd complain about any system apart from the one that guaranteed YOU the tickets YOU wanted.

i applied for about 8 different events costing about £800 for my wife and i. I picked days from early rounds of competition . I never got a single ticket and yet walking past a travel agent i see they can offer packages at extortionate prices with hotel and a ticket . All seems very dissapointing !

One element that seems to have slipped under the radar are the number of tickets that have been earmarked for corporate entertainment. I'm not talking about sponsors tickets but those being held for LOCOG entertainment partners to offer "packages". My personal experience is of trying to secure tickets for the rowing. I have a personal interest in one particular athlete and would love to be there for her Olympic Final. All tickets are sold out - I put in multiple bids for tickets and secured not one single one and this week was sent the link for the second round of ticketing which also has a link for corporate events. I can purchase a block of minimum ten tickets now no problem and be offered finish line tickets with a tent for refreshments - the price a minimum £750 per person. For me this is an absolute disgrace - seats and space are taken up preventing the normal viewing public from attending. Despite all the promises from Lord Coe this means the games are only really open to the very rich. I know having attended a vast range of sporting events that these corporate seats will largely be taken by people who have no interest in the sport itself. The London Games were to be a real opportunity for us to be part of the Games - sadly it transpires only if you are very wealthy and that is a very sad legacy.

#85
If its the same events and the price categories you bid for are still available then indeed it would be bizarre. However I would take a look at the price category you bid for. Are those tickets sold out for the events you are interested in? I'm certain they will be.

eg) Beach Volleyball on Aug 7th at 9pm has tickets available but only in Price Category C. Price Category A, B, D and E have all sold out.

To say that not fair and the domain of the rich isnt correct. I couldnt afford to risk applying for many tickets as i wouldnt have had the money to pay for them. In the end i applyed for 5 sessions, 3 of which are for the most popular sports, all arranged over one weekend. Ive got 2 of them including one of the major events and can still fill up my weekend with other sports from the money that wasnt taken out of my account. My outlay for tickets will be £380 and i will get a weekend of Olympic action spread over 3 days. Yes i know ive been very lucky but its not all doom and gloom and there are plenty of positive stories out there as well waiting to be heard.

@86
It is all on the web site. It is the first item on the News list.

Does nobody read the website before they make complaints?

Firstly how can the LOCOG advertise more tickets being available when it is the SAME tickets as went on sale in round one?

I love sport but will not be bidding in R2 for the lottery events competitions where I don't know what I'm even going to see. I will take my kids (who participate in sports) to watch events on the big screens IF the British summer doesn't let us down next year.

One final comment we start a competition to encourage sport participation by offering tickets as a potential prize if you complete a course. What about those who have already dedicated years to their sport (some of them Olympic ones) yet are ignored and now disillusioned? Answer that Mr Coe...

Sebs mandate was to try and sell all the tickets. He has chosen the one method he could do that. If he made the 'proles' believe they could get the top events and seats at all the events through a ballot he would get lots of applications. In that way he could pre sell all the best seats to corporate and then the second and third choices would always end up with general punters, ensuring the sales of the lesser tickets to the more niave, who, perhaps, never expected to be offered the archery qualifying. ANy other system would have seen half-full stadia at the lesser events. I suspect huge numbers of tickets will be returned from punters who did get the rubbish tickets when that option opens up. You were a fool if you ever throught you would get the best events from a ballot. The irony, of course, is the tickets are expensive and middle-class pourchases and most of the people who got nothing will be offered them as corporate in some way. My advice would be to sit tight and wait for a tidal wave of unwanted tickets for the lesser events that will come washing out of London soon.

I think the whole ticket ballot has been a farce. I applied for three sets of two tickets and received nothing. I think firstly there should have been a limit of four applications per household or a limit of £1000 per household. There should have been transparancey in how many tickets in each price range were available and where they were in the stadium.
Looking at what's going to be available in the second round for me its a case of deciding do I really want to see the Olympics enough to see a sport I have little interest in.
Is it little surprise that there are over a million available tickets for the football ,this will remain so until they publish the fixtures.

Is it just the Olympics happening in London next year? I dont think so. Personally Im looking forward to the Paralympics. So instead of whinging on about how you can't get tickets for the Olympics, apply for tickets to the Paralympics - the hardest working games in town next year. The tickets go on sale soon.

51.
At 09:00 18th Jun 2011, jack841 wrote:

blahblahblah, all people do in this country is moan. A ballot was clearly the fairest way of distributing tickets and none of you lot have come up with a viable alternative. Also, to those complaining about corporate tickets, they are paying for a large proportion of the games and have any of you considered that they might actually be sports fans.


Well, all I can say is that the one and only time I went to a sports event as a corporate guest - Open Golf at Muirfield a few years ago - 80% of the other attendees had absolutely no interest in the game itself. Many of them literally did not leave the corporate tent to watch a single shot of live golf. So I remain highly sceptical and dubious about the process to sell tickets for the Olympics.

I'mm not sure that the comments from Lord Coe et al about this being the best way aren't a little disingenuous - best fro who? In tems of fairness of allocations I would have thought that the best way would have been to use some kind of ranking system.

As always the devil is in the detail, but something along the lines of getting people to rank their applications in order of preference (up to some kind of a cap). Then when that was done, make the draw in oder of popularity with people who were successful in their higher-order preferences being excluded from the draw for lower order preferences unless there were tickets spare.

For us it didn't make a lot of difference - we applied for (and got) the tickets we wanted, but we follow one of the "minority sports" so it wasn't likely to be an issue for us.

In my cycling club not one person any got tickets for the velodrome. If any one still thinks the Olympics is fundamental about sport, they are sorely mistaken. Its business, business.