Be wary of potential ticketing pitfalls

Looks like the cycling road race around Box Hill and Surrey then!!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

There is no means of selling your ticket back to the sellers (at a reduced rate) if you find your self in a situation whereby you end up with more tickets than you want/ can afford. But to stand the best chance of getting any ticket you have to apply for more than just the 1 event on 1 particular day.

The system should have allowed you to prioritise your wishes (and ticket a box agreeing to / or not agreeing to accept a cheaper seat at that event) and/or allowed you to sell back your unwanted ticket at say 85% of face value....many football clubs do this with season ticket holders who cannot make it to a game they have a ticket for. It means that people can take a small loss rather than being forced to re-sell illegally, and that the ticket will find its way in to the hands of a legitimate purchaser.

Not sure what anti-touting measures are being put in place but many will end up with unwanted tickets because you are forced to apply for many events to increase your chance of being successful once.

Poorly conceived IMO.

I just hate all this visa /coca cola pepsi/budweiser /mcdonalds sponserd sporting events , i hoped that the normal not corporate people would get the tickets ,that just dosnt look like it , assomeone who works in the disabled sector ,i have alot of freinds without any visa card wanting to go ,but it looks like lord coe and his freinds dont really care about such things as normal people

Instead London 2012 have give us all the option to take a more considered approach over our ticket choices. My advice to you is simple:

... save your money, avoid the hassle and watch it on the telly!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Might rename this this the anti-social games as there appears to be no way you can guarantee to see a live event with family or friends unless you do corporate hospitality I guess!

So if I want to take my daughter to the swimming and only get allocated one ticket.

Without the ability to sell my ticket back and an overdraft why wouldn't someone sell it to a tout? Isn't this just encouraging a black market?

Visa are laughing all the way to funnily enough to the BANK; card fees, interest and transaction costs on top of the tickets. Plus more customers.

As someone who has attended the last four Olympic Games, one bit of advice I'd pass on is don't assume you're guaranted to get the tickets you want just by getting in the first round of the lottery.

If you apply for the most popular events, especially those with a small number of seats at the event, AND you're going for the cheapest ticket categories, be prepared to be disappointed as the demand will far outstrip supply. Its the less popular sport or events where there are lots of tickets due to the size of the stadium (like football) that will be easiest to get.

For that reason my advice is you should consider your first and second choice events for each day you plan to be in London, just in case you don't get the tickets you want.

Can someone please let me know if I am specific about wanting multiple tickets for an event, I will either get none or the specific number I have requested. I am hoping it is not the case that if I apply for 2 tickets to many events I can end up with just one. As that would be truly ridiculous!!!

@Oli- At previous games, if you apply for X number of tickets, you either get all the X tickets or none. I'd expect that will be the same for 2012 as clearly it would cause chaos.

Another Olympic fiasco then.

Of course, the biggest risk to potential buyers is actually ending up with tickets and having to watch some tedious athletics, or something.

Given how expensive the tickets are and how uncertain the allocations are going to be, the process is not very well thought out.

As I understand the process at the moment, I will have to have cash sat in a bank account or arrange credit facilities to cope with a possibility of being allocated all of the tickets i request.

I am a big Athletics fan and will apply for good tickets for all evening sessions, so 420 x 4 tickets x 9 sessions plus say 4 x 150 for Closing ceremony. In the unlikely event i get all of these, that is almost 16,000!!! Am I supposed to keep that amount spare in my current account on the remore chance? Am I supposed to ask VISA for an increase in my credit limit?

What happens if I get half of these tickets (that is 8,000 worth and I only have 7,000 in my account?). Will my whole application be rejected?

If I was told what tickets I had been allocated and given , say 2 weeks, to put payment facilities in place, how much more sensible would that have been? It would give me time to arrange a second mortgage!

OK, so the tickets are expensive and difficult to get but this is one part of the process that could have been better thought out

Got my tickets for the showpiece, cant wait..

Motihur S Rahman

If you have registered as a volunteer for the games and havent yet found out wether you have qualified for this, then how do you know what days/events to apply for, i assume you will get time off to watch some events but it could be like finding a needle in a haystack routine.

When it was announced that London had won the Olympic games my heart sank as all I could see for most of the people in the UK was extra expense to fund them.
Now we know the extortionate ticket prices they are charging and the crazy lottery to obtain tickets I am even more certain my gut feeling was right.
Unsuccessful punters will end up giving an interest free loan to the organisers for months. The best seat in the house is the one behind the TV so my advice is have nothing to do with this clash of the drug companies.

I have sympathy for the organisers in that you can't please all of the people all of the time.

I completely endorse their method of running a ballot as this will decrease the number of touts who get tickets for the main events which can only be a good thing and it does not penalise those with slow internet connections or who are busy at 9am on the dot tomorrow morning. If, as digitalscoobiedoo says, you get all or none of your application for each event, that is also a good thing. I have been left in the lurch several times before in ballots when only receiving one ticket having applied for two, which satisfies no-one.

However, the fact that the money is taken before you are told what tickets you have won is utterly ludicrous and pointless - I can see absolutely no benefit to any party of this arrangement and it will only serve to undermine what is a decent effort at answering an unanswerable question.

I have to say it's extremely funny that so many people seem to want tickets to sports they wouldn't dream of seeing if it wasn't the Olympics, and will be prepared to pay at least £20 for a ticket. There have been plenty of important events held in Britain recently which got virtually nobody bothering to go. For example I went and saw the World Short course speed skating Championships in Sheffield over the weeekend, and went out of curiosity and the fact that tickets were only £8. I thought it would be packed at that price, but there were less than 2000 people there in an arena that can take over 8000. Of those that attended at least half seem to be connected with the sport with lots of the team officials in the stands, plus friends and family. I think its strange that so many people seem to be prepared to go and see a sport they have never seen before just because it is the olympics, probably played between two teams that have no chance, and will be prepared to pay silly money for the priviledge. Seems most people are going just so they can say they went to the olympics when they are in the pub in 20 years time.

Is this not paid with taxpayers money?

strategy = take all what you can, give nothing back

I agree with the guy in post 16, taking the money out of people's accounts first makes no sense at all - just because how will they know the total amount to take out without knowing which tickets in which price bands people have been allocated?

Unless, of course, they're going to use the same process as the order form applications and take the maximum amount out of people's accounts first before issuing refunds for the tickets people don't get.

Clearly the most ludicrous aspect of this system is committing people to buying everything they go in for rather than showing them what tickets they've been allocated and then giving them a brief grace period to make up their minds or not; doing it this way would give people more time to choose their tickets and most importantly to SAVE UP MORE MONEY to afford more of them.

Indeed, what are the options for people who need money elsewhere in May to buy other things or - like myself - spend on a pre-booked holiday?

I'm still sticking with my original approach of putting in a few hopeful purchases for the big events and taking my chances either in the re-sale or in the subsequent sales periods to shift what I believe will be large amounts of tickets unsold in this period.

You will never satisfy all parties. The ticketing options in place are the most sensible i have seen in years. Can you imagine a first come first serve option. The website woulkd crash and there would be endless complaints of ticket touts cornering the market. People, wake up in 15 months this Olympics is going to be the biggest sporting event to ever hit our shores. You need to be on board.

I can't imagine why Visa think that making everyone's lives difficult by forcing everyone to use Visa is good PR on their part. It's rude and utterly inconsiderate of the way people want to arrange their finances. For a company that is meant to provide a service, knowingly making life difficult for ticket buyers is unforgiveable.

I say this as someone who only uses Visa, so it's no actual problem for me. It's just very, very selfish of them - hardly the spirit of the Games.

James,

I thought this was an interesting article...

As a sports fan, I've been planning my agenda since the calendar was released.

I hope to take my son along to some of the events and I hope they will inspire him, just as I was inspired by the great sporting occasions I saw when I was young.

Sport is truly a power for good. It's the news that makes us feel good. It has transcended religion, race and politics, bringing people together in the spirit of competition. And next year it's all going to be in our backyard.

Upsets, drama, tragedy and greatness, will be on our doorstep for nearly three glorious weeks.

The British organising team are doing a superb job so far. By its very nature, the sale of tickets (and eventually in June the distribution of tickets) was always going to create a large dollop of controversy.

So, I personally wonder what will happen to the many corporate tickets that will be given to Lloyds TSB as one of the major sponsors?? Will the executives be sitting comfortably in the executive boxes at the Opening and closing ceremonies, at the men's 100 metres and at the premier swimming evenings. Wimbledon's Centre Court for the Men's final after a long lunch??

As "friends" of the Olympics they will no doubt receive some of the very best tickets to the very best events, while the rest of the public will scramble for those tickets remaining.

I do not doubt that the Olympics are commercial and I do not doubt the importance of sponsors - the standard was set in Atlanta in the 1996 "Cola Beverage that shall not be named" games. The very nature of organising a major sporting occasion is incredibly expensive and sponsors are a necessary member of the team.

But sponsoring the games should be a commercial decision. A decision based on the exposure of the company's brand to current and potential customers as well as connecting the company's brand values in the minds of customers with the great virtues of sport. Daring to dream, competing at the highest level and succeeding against the best.

It should not be about executives receiving corporate freebies and lavish lunches because they are sponsors.

I recognise that the decision to sponsor the games was made before the bail-out and it was made before RBS was forced upon Lloyds.

But I think the bank's executives would be very well advised to publicly make a pledge not to accept corporate tickets but to dontate these tickets.

Some of the leading newspapers recently published a picture of an executive waving a 10 pound note at protesting nurses. The staff member was rightly suspended by the Bank.

The banking community's public image is at a low point - for the banking executives to be seen in the 2,012 pound seat tickets as a freebie seems likely to grate on people who are only able to watch it on TV.

I imagine the bank would reply about the number of tickets they are giving away to customers. They would reply how they are helping local communities. They would reply how these tickets are incentives to reward staff.

But, Lloyds is now a partly state owned bank. So in the interests of clarity and transparency wouldn't it be wonderful for the Bank to publicly declare just how many tickets they receive for the games along with the the comparitive value of these tickets. Not to mention the extra Olympic perks they receive.

Personally, the bank can have my money with my ticket application whenever they want it, because I can't wait to see the greatest show on earth.

Does anybody know if the cardholder of the card used for payment has to be present at the event and show the card as confirmation of purchase?

If so, what happens if your card expires between now and next summer?

Had a look on the 2012 FAQ, but it is one of the most useless pieces of wasted cyberspace you could come across. They seem allergic to the words 'yes' and 'no'.

@20: OK, Jeremy, I'll look foward to you sending me a cheque for £500 to enable me to "get on board".

I understand the London organisers get no choice over the ludicrous Visa arrangement; if Visa want to cash in and lose good will, that's their choice. I also think the main ticket allocation method is fair.

But it's ridiculous and inexcusable to take the money weeksbefore telling people what tickets they've been allocated and, crucially, the price. What on earth were they thinking?

So I put in for my tickets, see the money disappear from my bank account, with no information about what I might be seeing ? Meanwhile, Visa take my cash and make interest on it !!

Sorry, I won't be buying. This sort of trading practice should be illegal at all levels.

I applied for a VISA credit card in preparation for this but they have given me one with a very low limit so it is of no use to me.

Also how can the system be that you get no warning about how much is going to be deducted from your debit card account? I can only pay for tickets with money that is currently in a ISA account. So VISA are saying I need to get a load of money from my savings account just in case I get all the tickets, then in all liklihood I get very few tickets and I'm left with a load of cash I then can't put back in the savings.

@23 I think for events like this your name is just printed on the ticket and then random spot checks are done on tickets to see if someone in the party has their name on the ticket. I think in practice they can't check the names of all ticket holders as would take too long to get everyone in to the event. That was my experience when I attended a major football tournament a few years ago anyway so things may have advanced since then.

I am looking forward to planning my fortnight and hoping I get the tickets I want.

Yes, the ticketing system is not ideal... money being taken out the account before knowing which events you have got but I have been to premiership football matches at £30 a ticket and had 90 mins of boredom... even League 1 tickets are often nearly £20. 'Normal' people can afford football tickets so they can afford Olympic tickets if they really want them! Cricket and rugby I have also paid over £50 for a ticket

At least the Olympics you know you will get the best standard in the world for the particular event (notable exceptions of course!)

What will happen with the tickets which get purchased but the bidder can not afford the tickets? Do these go into another ballot or is it then first come first serve? Or do they reallocate to another person who tried to get the tickets? There could be some great tickets which people could not afford!

Just a shame for the next 500 days every Olympics blog will get hijacked by the 'who cares about the Olympics' people or 'I can not afford to go despite spending £20 a week on ciggies'...

@29: Your definition of 'normal' as regards people's ability to afford tickets and your 'ciggies' comment at the end seems to suggest that you're a wealthy person with a superiority complex.

How much is your total budget for buying Games tickets?

I wish people would stop moaning about this. Personally I think people should pay up front for the tickets with the funds held in escrow and then be refunded if they are unsuccessful, perhaps then selfish so and sos won't be applying for all the tickets under the sun and then selling them on/back which wastes everyone's time. It also makes the entire process much simpler.

26. At 9:22pm on 14 Mar 2011, redmercury wrote:
So I put in for my tickets, see the money disappear from my bank account, with no information about what I might be seeing ? Meanwhile, Visa take my cash and make interest on it !!

Sorry, I won't be buying. This sort of trading practice should be illegal at all levels.
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What a stupid statement. You are getting some of the tickets you applied for, what are you going to do refuse to pay if they aren't your first choices? If not then what difference does it make when you find out?

I am sorry if the last comment came across a little wrong but I have been saving for a while to try and get tickets for the once in a lifetime events. I am treating the event as a holiday in itself.. skipping the holiday abroad for a year and trying to get tickets for as many events as I can. I do not care if I get a couple of water polo teams I have never heard of or a preliminary round of archery, it is the fact that I would have experienced the sporting celebration.

My issue is that 90% of people can save enough to sample the Olympic experience if they tried. Even going to the cinema is £8 so £20 for a cheap ticket is pretty good value in my opinion. There are just some people who will complain at everything...

I'll be going for the Football Ones in Coventry!
Be watching the rest on the TV.

VANOC operated the same ballot system - and payment system - for tickets for the 2010 winter games so what LOCOG are doing is hardly novel.

A ballot is the fairest method of allocating tickets and especially for the premier events.

Can anyone honestly say that they would buy any other product like this? Would you buy a car cash upfront without knowing the make or model? Would you pay in advance for your week's groceries without knowing what you would get? Doesn't common sense tell us not to do such stupid things? We have been mugged off for billions to hold an increasingly irrelevant "sporting" event that is more about having it that the actual sport. Now a draconian ticketing policy that takes no notice what so ever of the real life financia situation on the majority of the British public. It is very unlikely that my kids will get to see any of this "Legacy" event live as we simply won't have hundreds of pounds sitting idle in a Visa accessed account in May.

@36.
That is ridiculous. You will be paying up for front for tickets that you have asked for. In your car analogy, it would be the equivalent of choosing a number of cars that you would be willing to buy and then being allocated one (or possibly more). At what stage therefore would you not know the make or model? Same also for the groceries.
You're right though, you would have to be incredibly stupid to do these things. Good thing that's not what they're asking for.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

VISA will be getting lots of interest from the money they collect from people who pay in advance.They will of course also be getting interest until they eventually give you YOUR money back. VISA cannot lose but YOU can and will.

VISA only handle the payments - they don't issue cards (credit or debit) or keep the payments! They will take a percentage of each payment, but the interest will be made by the Olympics organisation.
VISA don't set your credit limit either and if your limit is too low you can pre-fund the account to allow you to pay a larger sum.
I always thought the main problem with London getting the Olympics would be the moaners!
By the way, I don't work for VISA.

Please dont think iam one these against the olympics groups ,but this whole visa card payment thing stinks to me ,and what really makes me very cross is someone like lord coe come on tv and say its for everyone ,well its not ,i have said this for ages why didnt they set up a scheme were people could buy there tickets through a pay point scheme ,
i will be contacting the olympic ticketing people and having tried to buy tickets for disabled people have found the whole process very confusing ,and iam a someone who works with disabled people

40 Nick H and there is the problem, yet another sponsor driven middle man taking their cut and complicating what should've been a simple process.

Simple to have multiple payment options for the man in the street.

Just looked at the website and they seem to missing what all other entertainment venues have nowadays - seating plans. How do you know how good or bad the seats in each catagory are going to be and the level of availablity of each price band?

I'm looking to go to a finals night of the swimming and prepared to pay for a £185 ticket, but the tickets for the band below are £95 - a £90 difference. It would be nice to know if the £185 seats are really £90 better off than the £95 seats. You could end up sitting right next to someone who has paid £90 less!

@42 Hainba: Without Sponsors, LOCOG (who put on the Olympics) wouldn't get enough money to host the games, nor would any other host organising committee. Seeing as you are so anti-sponsors, what do you suggest to do?

As a Londoner... and a tax payer... i have been looking forward to the Olympics since it was announced it, i have been defending it from everyone who said it was a massive waste of money and i am eager to go to as many events as possible.

So i find it so frustrating to find out that the ticketing process is so ridiculous and tedious and for no reason. why not just sell the tickets as out would for any other sporting event!? it just dosent make sence. i work but dont have an amazing amount of money to enjoy myself with, how do they expect people like me to go any 'maybe' buy tickets? if i end up with all i go in for i could never afford them.

Some bloke in a suit has made this decision on the basis it will be ok for him and his mates, not 99% of the normal public. this ticket system stinks!

Frankly I couldn't give a rats backside.

The sooner this NONE event is over the better, I am already sick to the back teeth of reports about Stadia, Facilities, lack of cash for overpaid and overrated athletes.

It is not real, it is play time, the money on this pathetic spectacle would have been better spent on ....... well frankly ANYTHING ELSE!

As a Londoner, I have had money added onto my Council Tax bill to pay for the Olympics. My "reward" for paying for the Olympics? Nothing!

I have a credit card with plenty of credit limit however if I lose the card or at the whim of the bank I could get a new card number. Card also has to be valid till end June'11 as well. Large card transactions can also get bounced by the bank if they think its fraudulent. Will Olympic ticketing regime give you a 2nd chance to sort the payment out - as outlined above it may not even be your fault !!

Why don't they do what AELTC do with Wimbledon tickets? It's a ballot system but they notify you when you are successful and give you a few weeks to pay online. If you do not pay by the deadline the tickets are allocated to someone else. That way you get to decide whether to pay the price or not. With the popularity of the Olympic games I'm sure it won't take too many rounds of re-allocation for all the tickets to be paid for.

"Sport is truly a power for good. It's the news that makes us feel good. It has transcended religion, race and politics, bringing people together in the spirit of competition. And next year it's all going to be in our backyard."

I used to believe this but I've come to realise that groups such as the IOC and FIFA are corrupt to the core and mainly in it for one purpose and that's to line their own pockets.

You can keep your tickets, I might watch a bit on the tv but not if I've got anything better to do (anything).

So let me get this straight.

The lottery system means you have to apply for many more tickets than you actually want, this restricts purchasing to people who have enough money to cover an unknown number tickets up front. Meaning most people who are successful will probably have too many tickets and need to sell some.

You get charged for the tickets in May, receive them some time in June, but the official ticket reselling website doesn't go online for some time after this.

So we are going to have a situation where there are millions of people with unwanted tickets and no "official" way to sell them. How on earth is this going to result in LESS ticket touting? If anything this is going to be the *most* touted Olympics ever...

#36 - "Would you pay in advance for your week's groceries without knowing what you would get?"

Yes, I do that all the time when I order online with "a well-known supermarket". They always turn out to be out of stock of something. So I only get some of the things I've asked for, and they only charge me for the things I actually get.

This is exactly the same arrangement. It's a shame for people who don't get the tickets they wanted, but it isn't a scandal.

I don't see what the furore is all about. The ticket allocation is fair, everyone applies for the events they would like to see and then a ballot is held. Quite simply you shouldn't be applying for tickets if you do not have the funds for them, this doesn't make a difference between using a Credit Card or Debit Card.

Visa are quite entitled to restrict payments to their product but provide a quick and easy solution for those without a Visa card. They provide millions and millions of pounds to the Olympics and without these sponsorships from the big companies there wouldn't be any Olympics at all. Athletes require sponsorships to provide them with their training kit, accommodation, travelling costs (and much more) as this isn't a job which you get paid to do. Therefore as these companies are investing in Athletics and allowing people from all other the world to compete in one location I think they have every right then to showcase their product.

@17 David
Seems most people are going just so they can say they went to the olympics when they are in the pub in 20 years time.

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That is EXACTLY why I want to go. I couldn't give a monkeys about Athletics or the Olympics usually so, as this is the case, going to the London Olympics is probably the only time I will ever have a chance to attend without travelling at a higher cost. All I want is some cheap tickets to some Athletics events so I can sit in the crowd in the Olympic Stadium and cheer on my nation with pride.

Understandably then, I only want tickets for one evening, yet I'm going to have to apply for many evenings and probably a greater cost if I want to guarantee tickets. Is a cheap ticket to stand at the back of a minor event really too much to ask?! OVERPRICED!

One of the main problems is that maybe you can afford to pay £20 for a ticket, but the only option is to apply for 4 or 5 of these tickets in order to (hopefully) guarantee you get one, which means you run the risk of paying £100 when you only want to pay £20.

I think the plan with the current system is very clear - make sure the less popular events are sold out at a price no-one would ever pay on general sale. If there is one thing that the London organisers have learnt from previous olympics, it is that you have to find a way to get people into the lesser events at full price and at a sell-out. Since in the past general sale has failed, tricking people to go for these events (as well as the ones they would like to get tickets for) is the organisers cunning plan.

The window and ballot system is much fairer than first come first served, but the lack of a yes/no to the allocated tickets before finalising payment ruins it.

maybe another solution is to spend the money on a holiday and leave the country while the games are on

No matter what the organisers did in order to sell these tickets they were never going to please everyone. Whilst I feel some of the events are far too costly (£50 to watch some swimming finals for example) it is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us in England. If you elove sport, but decide you would rather go watch the next Olympics in Rio for example then I think you will find the tickets will cost about the same, but with the added expense/hassle of arranging flights and hotels. Factor that in and this will work out not too bad.

Anyway i've worked out what i'm going to apply for and will just keep my fingers crossed that i'm lucky enough to win some of the events I have applied for when the draw is made.

Most of the people commenting here are completely missing the point! This isn't about the organisers coming up with a way for YOU to get the tickets that you want, this is a way of being fair to the millions of people who would like to catch some of the London Olympics. So no, you're not supposed to apply for £16,000 worth of tickets to guarantee that you get some tickets. It's a ballot, so if you get to go then you're lucky, if you don't then you're not lucky and if you go massively into debt that you can't handle because you bought too many tickets then you're an idiot.

To Westmorlandia.
I can empathise with your frustration re Visa having the monopoly, but understand they are a business and at the end of the day, business comes first - they see an opportunity to make money and grasp it, they do not exist to provide anything else if it hits their bottom line - that's the way of our world. You can spite yourself like I did and withdraw from applying to be a Volunteer once I knew another big multinational, McDonalds, had its mitts in there, but now I'm upset I won't be helping people like I'd once hoped. Of course, as seems to be happening now with Visa, corporate reputations can be hit, but they're usually big enough to fight another day. On a practical level though, given some of the queries on here about how the process will work, (e.g. someone asked happens if I apply for 2 tickets - will I perhaps only get one) perhaps the organising commitee could have been a lot more specific ahead of today. Indeed, why wasn't there a public forum to explain the approach in detail, to receive public feedback and perhaps to modify accordingly - particuarly in terms of taking money from people ahead of formally notifying them what they have bought. I also wonder why the limit on the number of tickets you can apply for at a specific event is set so high - 30 for football, 20 for many others. Who has family that big? It just seems to invite a resale market.

44 Jordan D - I love sport but the Olympics has been de-valued by greed of the IOC and introduction of non-olympic events (football etc).

I am not anti-sponsorship but I am anti any sponsor who uses their clout to monopolise the games.

The track record of the games so far has left a trail of host countries with white elephants still being paid while the IOC have been well paid for bestowing this honour.

Well i havnt missed the point about the price of these tickets ,look lord coe and his chums will enjoy the best seats at every event ,with a nice big thankyou from visa .
The olympics and the tickets were never going to be fair ,and takeing aay the touts and the package deals ,it looks like visa could be the new ticket tout

It should be renamed the corporate games, the corporates will apply for 1000's of tickets as they can afford them and then give them away to their fat cat clients. Very dissapointed with the whole process.

I just wanted to echo the concern from Post 20. If you have registered as a volunteer for the games you are put in the situation of having to apply for tickets not knowing if you'll be able to see the events you've paid for because you might be volunteering.
At least now there seems to be a scheme in place where you might be able to re-sell your tickets (next May) but is that only if there is demand for the tickets you've bought ? I really want see some live events with my family and be a volunteer and help make the Games happen in London but I don't want to be penalised financially for doing so.

Completely agree with pbutler102 - no.49. The AELTC is much fairer in that you know what you're committing to. Travelling from Scotland I'd like to pack in a weekend of sport at the Olympics. But if I'm unlucky in the ballot for the athletics and the cycling I'm then reluctant to make the trip to see just the 'smaller' sports.

Let me see what I've got in the ballot, then give me the option to proceed with the purchase. I'll now only be putting in for the two big events I'm really keen on as I can't take the risk.

To Visa; Thank you no. My Visa card already met Mr Shredder. I'm one of the customers you've lost. Instead of just complaining about the situation, I voted with my custom.

Just by living in London, I'm going to be paying for these games long after their executive bonuses are spent.

Why didn't they allow a maximum budget to be specified and only allocate up to that amount, subject to a limit on the total number of tickets applied for?
Without this limit I expect many people keen to guratantee getting a ticket will find they have committed to expenditure they cannot afford.

61 - "Lord Coe and his chums" are the organisers of the event! Are you suggesting that they should watch it on TV? So perhaps you're the kind of person who would spend years working on organising an event and then give up your prime seat to someone else? I don't think you appreciate the amount of time and effort that goes into organising an event like this.

Funny, how if we didn't have these sponsors, people would either be complaining because England are incapable of putting on a spectacular event or because more money would have to come from public funds.

It's fair because there's no way of guaranteeting that everyone will get to go. Demand will far outstrip supply so the fairest way is a ballot.

How hard would it be to have confirmed which tickets you had won, and allow you to confirm the purchase. If the session is oversubsribed, the unlucky losers are placed in order, and the top of the queue gets first refusal as their desired tickets become available. Put a 1 week time limit on, and everyone gets what they want.

I can't afford to apply for more than 1 day (a family day is going to cost at least £70) so i'll hoose carefully and hope I get lucky

Two things:
1:As Londoners have been paying throught the nose for this, via their council tax, why are they not being offered discounted tickets?
2: Buy anything,shares,clothes,food etc & sell it at a huge profit & you become a captain of industry & receive an honour.
Do the same with an Olympic ticket and you become a criminal.
Double standards me thinks.

As someone who lives in Aberdeen, IF I want to attend any event I'm looking at an overnight stay in London. Say I was to get tickets for days apart them I'm looking at more expense or trying to get my money back. Of course I can't book a hotel, which have gone up, till I know what seats I'm getting, nor can I book travel.

So basically I'm paying (taxes and reduced lottery funding) for an event that I can only see on TV? So this no different to seeing the Olympics in Paris/Berlin/Rome expect I'm paying for them?

@33 What an unbelievably short sighted and arrogant comment to make. I'm a student and I imagine I can afford £20 for a ticket. What I can't afford however is £20 for a ticket plus £50+ for travel plus £50+ for accommodation plus any money for food and drink. Nor can anyone else I know. So if you're (un)lucky enough not to live in London then it's quite a but more expensive.

I have my ticket already. It's called Freeview and it comes with a comfy chair thrown in for nowt !

Why anyone wants to pay money for Olympic event tickets (plus travel, food and maybe even accomodation) completely escapes me. The best seats will likely be taken by corporate bodies, IOC officials, MPs, etc., so the bears would be better staying at home and watching on TV - or better still, doing almost anything else and proving they have a life. Interested to know what the fall-back position is on ticket sales if the whole event is given a big thumbs-down?

49. At 10:35am on 15 Mar 2011, pbutler102 wrote:

Why don't they do what AELTC do with Wimbledon tickets? It's a ballot system but they notify you when you are successful and give you a few weeks to pay online. If you do not pay by the deadline the tickets are allocated to someone else. That way you get to decide whether to pay the price or not.
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Simple, because then everyone would apply for hundreds of tickets to ensure they get one, clogging up the system and creating massie number of non-sales.

Why do people not think before posting this drivvle.

To Jordan D.

A suggestion as to funding the Olympics - cut it down. It's meant to test the best SPORTSPEOPLE - "swifter, higher stronger", that's all. We don't need lavish expensively choreographed opening Ceremonies keeping athletes standing around for hours, and please, spare us fireworks - burning money is surely the height of grotesqueness as we struggle to ward off recession. We don't need hotel accomodation at raised prices, expensive on-site catering when we could take our own, overpriced mascots and tat, £10 programmes, the big multinationals hijacking a sports event to flog their wares and exert their exclusivity (a la Visa) to OUR detriment. All we want is to see sportspeople excel. Why have we got to a stage where we can't do such a simple thing in a simple way?

60. At 11:06am on 15 Mar 2011, hainba wrote:

44 Jordan D - I love sport but the Olympics has been de-valued by greed of the IOC and introduction of non-olympic events (football etc).
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Blah blah blah blah.

Football has been a part of EVERY olympics bar one (1932) since the year 1900, I sincerely doubt you remember the olympics pre-1900. It is taken seriously in most parts of the world as a competiton on par with many of the continental championships.

Try researching before posting nonsense.

63. At 11:12am on 15 Mar 2011, StephenB wrote:

I just wanted to echo the concern from Post 20. If you have registered as a volunteer for the games you are put in the situation of having to apply for tickets not knowing if you'll be able to see the events you've paid for because you might be volunteering.
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Apply for whatever tickets you want, I'm sure that nobody is going to sue you if you then decline the offer to volunteer on the days you win tickets for.

What a dogs dinner of a ticketing system, no wonder that PEDIGREE CHUM is one of the sponsors.

69. At 11:27am on 15 Mar 2011, letsenseprevail wrote:

Two things:
1:As Londoners have been paying throught the nose for this, via their council tax, why are they not being offered discounted tickets?
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Because Londeners are getting the vast percentage fo benefits from the games already, be it in increased income accross the capital (hotels, resteraunts, tourism, transport, shops) or facilities.

Does anyone know if you would be able to buy tickets after the ballot allocation had finished?

I don't understand what is is in this for Visa. Their world is divided into existing and 'potential' customers. There are no positives for existing customers nor for 'potential' customers alike, worse still they risk seriously alienating all 'potential' customers.
For this magnificent scenario they have paid zillions? They will need all the up-front interest they can rake in from this deal just to defray the huge cost to brand value.
Personally, I avoid any enterprise which takes my money before it is ready to deliver the goods - I see it as the hallmark of a shabby outfit, and I don't see why the Olympics should set its sights any lower!

I was really quite upset this morning when i went on the thomas cook website to look at some sort of package for a hotel and an opening ceremony ticket for my wife and I. £16000 for the two of us for 3 days, I did not realise to attend these olympics would cost more than two thirds of my yearly wage.
I understand that there are cheaper packages but to be honest i have no interest in paying nearly £600 for the 2 of us to see a table tennis preliminary round match. After watching the Athens and Beijing opening ceremonies on tv I was kind of hoping to see our very own one in real life. Whilst I understand i will not be the only one forced behind the tv again to watch them disapointed that I missed out in the £20 or £150 ticket ballot, it will be quite horrible to see thousands of corporate folks being wined and dined and taken for free to our big show in place of people who have worked, coached, played in the sporting industry for nearly 15 years.
I think after banking with lloyds all my life I may contact them and ask what the chances of their customers being treated to go to the events with them are instead of taking their high bonus taking members of the board (im sure they will pay for their own £2012 ticket, then again I prob have more chance with the ballot

69 commented:

1:As Londoners have been paying throught the nose for this, via their council tax, why are they not being offered discounted tickets?

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Why should you get discounted tickets? Sure you have paid a little bit more council tax but who benefits from the improved transport links, and the new facilities after the Olympics, other than Londoners. You might as well argue that people who brought the Lottery tickets which contributed to the cost of staging the Olympics should get discounts as well, especially if they live miles away from London, as they contributed, and will not benefit from the new facilities.

So tickets have just gone on sale and I now need to decide the tickets I want to apply for.

Let's say I want to see GB in the men's hockey. How do I know which dates they're going to be playing so I can apply for those specific sessions?

'what happens if your card expires between now and next summer?'

You have to have a Visa card that is valid up to the end of August this year going by the official website


'What will happen with the tickets which get purchased but the bidder can not afford the tickets?'

I'd guess they are not purchased then and the tickets will be redistributed, maybe this is one of the reasons for the gap in charging and finding out what you have got? Theres bound to be lots of people who won't realise their card is dead, don't have enough money etc, I'd guess they will be given a chance to solve the problem, then the tickets will go to someone else that wants them, and they will be charged for them, etc etc.


'How do you know how good or bad the seats in each catagory are going to be and the level of availablity of each price band?....
It would be nice to know if the £185 seats are really £90 better off than the £95 seats. You could end up sitting right next to someone who has paid £90 less!'

I think the prices are the indication and yes you could be sat next to someone, just as you could in the theatre. You could just as eaily be miles away from someone paying the next level of price. Theres always going to be people who get slightly better seats than others paying the same price. Is a pain though, I guess it comes down to if you want to get the best seats you will have to pay more. With some sports though will it really matter? There will be good views anyway. For me it's things like if you were paying ther top price for the 100m you'd expect to be on that side of the stadium for one thing!


'As a Londoner, I have had money added onto my Council Tax bill to pay for the Olympics. My "reward" for paying for the Olympics? Nothing!'

Um, how about the fact that the Olympics are on your doorstep, you have no travel costs from the other side of the country, no accommodation costs that the vast majority of visitors to London will have.
You will also have a lot more sports facilities than you had before. There will be all the houses if you live in that area (or indeed fancy doing so) that wouldn't have happened without the olympics.


'So we are going to have a situation where there are millions of people with unwanted tickets and no "official" way to sell them. How on earth is this going to result in LESS ticket touting?'

Because touting Olympic tickets is illegal and can bring you a fine of up to £20,000.
You won't be able to sell them on Ebay and I'm guessing there will need to be some form of ID needed when checked, just as places that do the same sort of thing eg Glastonbury (minus the photo of course).
There will be a way of selling them back, so it's the gap in time between paying, then getting the tickets and being able to resell them that is the issue.
And it's said on the official website (and in BBC stories)for ages that you won't be able to do this till next year so don't know why it's a surprise.

Sponsors getting tickets. Well it's not all going to be executives having jaunts, although of course there will be a lot of them doing that but using Thomas Cook as an example, they are selling their tickets as part of holiday packages. Travel, accommodation and tickets to certain events for x amount of money. And how many competitions do you think there will be from the likes of Macdonalds and Coke and Visa? It's not all men in suits drinking and eating canapes whilst ignoring the games. And even if it were, they've paid for them. Not like they are given to them for nothing, their sponsorship has paid for them all many many times over, and without them there'd be no olympics. As can be seen in comments here, people don't want to pay the amount that it costs, imagine if there were no sponsorship either?


I'm surprised to see no real comment on the length of the sessions vs cost though. Some sessions are just over an hour and others are maybe 8 hours long. So you could end up travelling to London, spending an hour and a half watching one session that cost you £80 and that's it, or spend the whole day watching the tennis prelims for the same amount.
Some people are going to be a shock when they get asked to let the next people in for the next session I think!

73. At 11:43am on 15 Mar 2011, Chas Rab wrote:
Why anyone wants to pay money for Olympic event tickets (plus travel, food and maybe even accomodation) completely escapes me. The best seats will likely be taken by corporate bodies, IOC officials, MPs, etc., so the bears would be better staying at home and watching on TV - or better still, doing almost anything else and proving they have a life. Interested to know what the fall-back position is on ticket sales if the whole event is given a big thumbs-down?

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I understand your viewpoint. That's precisely the view I took when the Commonwealth games were held in Manchester, so I didn't go. I have been regretting it ever since as everyone of my friends who went had a fantastic time.

I will definitely see london olympic game. who knows if its last ever olympic on earth :p. Watching on telly is saving money but I'm sure I will regret later...

I really wanted to go...once in a lifetime opportunity blah blah blah...the reality though is only the well off can afford to go...

Tickets = unknown and potentially large amount randomly being withdrawn from your account in mid May!

Accommodation = In London no doubt will be an absolute fortune!

Travel = I live in Leeds, so again will cost a lot!

In reality, enjoying the Olympics, and benefitting from the huge investment (paid for by all of us I should add) is only for the rich people of the South of England and of course London...not really fair is it.

I know there's no easy answer, but it is a shame. I should add I'm not exactly a pauper...I earn £35k but it's enough to put me off never mind those who earn much less then me! Then again, maybe I'm just being a tight Yorkshire Man...chuckle...

@56, I couldn't agree more. As a londoner, I'll be leaving the country when the Olympics comes to town. An increase in commuters on the tube plus ridiculous ticketing system? No thanks. It's a shame to miss out on such a spectacle as we've funded it and aren't seeing that reflected in any kind of pre-booking system......what's the point?

People might say, why should you be allowed better access than anyone else, I'll tell you why- because this extra influx of people will be making our lives a misery on a day to day basis and we all had to pay at least an extra £100 a month for the privelege!

For the same reason that Visa and Lord Coe will be able to see the events from comfy seats, they put the work in, so why shouldn't they?

To me this would have made a lot more sense . . .
1. Submit applications for events you want to attend
2. When tickets are allocated, organisers email lucky applicants
3. Applicants then have 'x' amount of days to pay for their tickets - If applicants do not pay within the time limit, tickets are returned to 'the pot' and re-allocated.

I would love to go and see at least one event but with so many people applying I would probably apply for several events to ensure getting tickets to something. However, I cannot afford to have £££'s taken from my account.

Also, how can card details be retained for such a long time without payment being taken? Is this even allowed??

It seems to me that the pricing strategy is very poorly thought out. I would not be surprised if in 6 weeks time they find that many events have not had the ticket applications they expected.

It would be far better to have reasonable prices and a ballot than have ticket prices out of the reach of the pocket of the average person. This won't inspire people to get involved at all.

The main problem I have is that with the ballot is that the proper fans aren't guaranteed a ticket.

For me there are many fans that attend crystal palace, Gateshead and Sheffield year in year out actually supporting athletics and prying there money into a sport that they are not guaranteed to see. There are many other sports where this is the case as well.

As for the visa debate if they put there money in then they are entitled to generate business for themselves.

Here's looking forward to the first athletics meeting after the olympics at the main stadium to see a quarter to half full stadium that the majority of the capacity crowds that turn up for the olympics will not be interested in.

I don't care about the Olympics. I will watch some of it on the box like I always do no matter where in the world it is. (I enjoy the winter games much more)

The whole event is a big cash cow and will show up the transport shortfalls in London. Wembley is a nightmare to get home from when it's half full so add the extra tourists to the mix and the whole of London will be chaos!

hmm, why are these people are soo angry? If they don't want to watch, hear or get disturbed, then just sit back or ignore all the news about olympic games.
Rude people are everywhere!!! Behave people!!!
I love sport :)

58. At 10:58am on 15 Mar 2011, hardingmd wrote:

Most of the people commenting here are completely missing the point! This isn't about the organisers coming up with a way for YOU to get the tickets that you want, this is a way of being fair to the millions of people who would like to catch some of the London Olympics. So no, you're not supposed to apply for £16,000 worth of tickets to guarantee that you get some tickets. It's a ballot, so if you get to go then you're lucky, if you don't then you're not lucky and if you go massively into debt that you can't handle because you bought too many tickets then you're an idiot.

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Except that if you're rich enough to be able to buy £16,000 of tickets then you *can* afford to go for everything in sight and by doing so near guarantee that you'll get to see at least something you want, while disposing of the ones you don't 6 months later when the system for selling off unwanted ticket goes online. So the system as at stands allows the well-off to get exactly what they want and then leaves the rest of us to a lottery where we either bid for the bare minimum knowing we're highly likely to go away disappointed, or bid for too much and risk financial difficulties as a result. And that's what seems to be most unfair about it to me. The wealtier shouldn't have a better chance of getting their desired ticket than someone else, and yet they will.

I will be applying for tickets for myself, my wife and my children. If all of the tickets get issued in my name, how will other members of the family be able to attend events if I am not there?

Anyone know?

Doesn't this system seem to break one of the basic principles of good online transactions: don't take the cash before you despatch the goods?

It seems Visa will be taking payment for an order that they won't be fulfilling for a long time after. I presume they won't be passing the money through to Locog until after the tickets have been despatched, which will mean a huge cash pile for them whilst the tickets are in abeyance. They have done very well from this deal.

why bother

My issue is with Visa having a monopoly on payments. I first came across this when i wanted to go to the World Cup in Germany in 2006 and you had to pay by Mastercard, which i did not have. I onjected to that and stayed at home. There are many corporate sponsors who benefit from having their logos plastered everywhere, so why does Visa need to have a monopoly on ticket sales? Isn't this anti-competitive and against the law? The EU needs to stop this from happening, as it wouldn't be allowed outwith major events.

I can sense half empty stadia already, but LOCOG won't be all that worried about it as they will already have your money.

There are already systems in place for concerts etc that could easily have dealt with the Olympic volumes in a much more suitable manner. This whole ridiculous system is pointless and costly and stinks of bad organisation.