Hope remains for the one million unlucky applicants

I don't see why 6+ million tickets could not have been distributed more fairly among the majority of applicants. It's outrageous that someone gets £11k worth of tickets whilst 1million (55%) miss out completely. My sons are gutted we got no tickets from £500 not even basketball, mountain biking or swimming. We live in London and planned no holidays at that time. Have now gone off Olympics completely.

I am also disappointed that some who only applied for a modest amount got nothing. Surely allocation as a percentage would have been a fairer system? I've applied to become a volunteer so would not have been able to have many tickets anyway as I still don't know if I've been selected or not. I may potentially lose out in both respects....

Thanks James - very informative, though very disappointing.

I applied for about £600 worth of tickets and had £46 debited from my card, which means I've got a pair of £20 tickets to either the handball or BMX Cross (+ the charming £6 delivery fee), both of which I applied for just for the craic, to see something a bit different.

Now I'm wishing I had got nothing at all, as I'm ineligible for the phase 2 tickets until 10 days in, by which time most of the decent grabs will no doubt have gone.

What a rubbish system.

I simply don't believe them. I deliberately applied for early, non-medal sessions and mostly for sports that aren't that popular. Still got almost nothing. Yet, because I didn't get absolutely nothing (by my calcs, I got two tix for an early badminton round), I miss out on being able to apply in this second round.

It's a total shambles and I suspect we're not being told the whole truth.

Judging from my friends and workmates, very few have got tickets and most of us live within 20 minutes of the Olympic site. I find it most disappointing that youngsters who are actively engaged in sport have not had some sort of priority. It is galling that the radio is full of companies offering tickets as prizes in promotions.

I applied for £3500 worth of tickets (80 tickets) picking a real mix of events and was hopeful of getting maybe about £500-1000 worth. I have ended up with ZERO tickets its shocking.

There are a couple of things that really bug me.

1.All the corporate tickets
2.The fact that other european countries are selling tickets to exact events. Why have they been given tickets in the first place? It the British Olympics and its tax payers money paying for it not the EU.
3. Why have some people been given 10's of thousands of tickets yet others been left with zero?

Its a shambles and a big kick in the teeth for the British public!

If you are right that the organisers are making the next phase first come first served then this is clearly a poor decision. That might have made sense as an initial plan but now the demand from phase one has been so high that this just would be the wrong decision. What about people who are at work and cannot access, in an important meeting all day, their internet goes down that day. Another ballot would be far more civilised.

If you agree please post here.

If several of us agree, please BBC contact LOCOG with what we say.

What is even more galling Timelord is the number of tickets that have been automatically allocated to sponsors and hangers on and the fact that these are likely to be the prime seat tickets. I know that even had I been lucky enough to get my pathetic request for 2 tickets for the closing ceremony I would have needed binoculars to see anything in detail but would have loved being there for the atmosphere. Oh well, hope it rains now.

"The bad news is that many of those tickets will be sold in conjunction with a hotel room, so if you don't need accommodation then you might have to end up with an unwanted extra cost"

Surely they can't do that? Isn't it illegal to not offer ticket only?

I'm gutted I didn't get anything out of top price BMX, Mountain biking, Pentathlon and Eventing.

James, any idea what time on 13 June the French tickets become available? The site does not seem to have a time that my French is capable of deciphering.

Im hugely disapointed, I applied early, I know it didnt make a difference, but wanted to make sure my application was in, yet I have got nothing, not even to the early stages of the Athletics(no finals) and which I thought I would have more chance than say the 100m final etc..

Of course knowing it was a ballot I applied for the opening ceremony, worth a go I thought, but nope nada...

I would have applied for football, basketball etc but whats the point as you dont know whose playing who and when and no offence to the other nations but I wanted a chance to see GB and/or the USA play basketball, but as the fixtures havent been released yet I didnt want to waste my money, I dont have much so wanted to concentrate on what I could afford, I know people who applied for £2k worth of tickets with no guarantee they get any or if they got all could afford them!

Frankly its a total joke, im seriously not bothered about going now and probably wont try for the second phase as no doubt all the tickets will be expensive and impossible to get hold of due to it being first come first serve.

I WAS an ardent Olympic fan and was excitied that we won the games and I would have the chance to go and see some events and be part of the games as it were, but now im really unimpressed and somewhat uninterested..

Its typical British bureaucracy, bluster and inefficiency really, just look at the fiasco over the stadium legacy and the Wrap, non-Wrap, Wrap saga.

Oh and I live in North London, so whats the point of going to stay in a Hotel if buying via the EU websites, just more cost involved!

We bid for the tickets that would be the ones that would be in high demand, simply because the sports mean something to us and we were only willing to pay the minimum price for finals, and we got nothing!

I was initially irritated because of the hype before the tickets went to ballot, suggesting that we should be part of the the biggest sporting event to take place in the UK and then finding out that less than half the people who made bids got nothing.

Now, I'm more sanguine about the whole thing. At least I had a go to get tickets, at least I wanted to be there. But things happen. We've been invited to spend next summer when the olympics are on with my daughter and family who live in the US. No brainer really!

I'm sorry but this was a lottery. Doesn't matter where you live, whether you are a sports nut, what size shoes you wear, if you can see the stadium from the outhouse or whatever - get over it. I applied for over £1000 worth of tickets and I got none. Am I disappointed - yes. Is it the end of the world? NO. It gives me hope that the games will be well attended and probably a success, which it seems may disappoint a lot of people

I don't understand why LOCOG have made such a mess of this. I was living in Sydney in the run-up to the 2000 Olympics and it was nowhere near this difficult to get tickets. I suspect that a big part of the problem is that most of the best tickets have been creamed off by sponsors etc, leaving meagre pickings for us lowly taxpayers. I would like to know precisely what percentage of the most popular events has actually been made available to the general public.

I ordered £1300 worth of tickets for 12 different events (2 tickets for each session applied), 6 athletics and one session each of 6 other sports. I have been given none. These ranged from £125 band tickets in athletics finals to a number of £20 tickets I thought I would at least get some of.
The information released has said there are 'hundreds of thousands' of football tickets remaining. One of the sessions I applied for was 2x£20 tickets for a preliminary round football game in Cardiff. Surely in a 75000 seater stadium for games the public do not even know which nations will be competing the vast majority of tickets would be the cheaper £20 options in which case it is hard to see how such sessions went to ballot. If not it is likely there will be very empty stadiums for such events if it turns out it is lesser-known teams involved.
I work in sport and spend much of my free time playing or watching live sport, but it seems the chance of a once in a lifetime experience of a UK Olympics is going to be enjoyed only by those who could afford to apply for tens of thousands of pounds of tickets, many of whom I doubt are otherwise involved in sport...
Hoping for some consolation in the 2nd round of tickets at the end of June.....

I applied for £4,500 of tickets and got nothing. It's a joke. I applied for a range of sports, several price bands for some, and heats as well as finals.

The day London was awarded the games I was ecstatic - one of the best days in my life. I'm an avid athletics fan. We have been saving up for 6 years for this feast of sport - a once in a lifetime opportunity. I booked leave 6 years ago - we have been soooooo looking forward to the Olympics. I had hoped as a sports fan who regularly supports Team GB that would count for something. Seems it counts for nothing.

What I can't work out is the 2012 website says "London 2012 will use an automated random selection process ('ballot') to ensure the fairest possible distribution and allocation of tickets" - how can applying for so many tickets and ending up with nothing be the 'fairest possible distribution' - there is something seriously wrong here. Surely they would have used an algorithm in the processing so that most people had something?

I would like a face-to-face meeting with Lord Coe so that he can see how disappointed, frustrated, let-down, angry people are, but I don't suppose he would do that with the strength of feeling that there is, especially in the light of this fiasco. It feels like a kick in the teeth, which comes even harder after all the years of supporting British sport.

In a fairer ballot once your name had come out of the draw a couple of times, should have been withdrawn to make it fairer for the rest. And, just how many corporate tickets have been set aside? Like many others I have gone off of the games and certainly will not be applying for any 'next round' tickets.

I don't understand why LOCOG have made such a mess of this. I was living in Sydney in the run-up to the 2000 Olympics and it was nowhere near this difficult to get tickets. I suspect that a big part of the problem is that most of the best tickets have been creamed off by sponsors etc, leaving meagre pickings for us lowly taxpayers. I would like to know precisely what percentage of the most popular events has actually been made available to the general public.

I'm a field hockey fan and i, like most of my friends, applied for hockey tickets for various games. So far I do not know one person who has been lucky enough to get hockey tickets, I read in a paper that the unlucky one's would be able to apply for unpopular sports like hockey in the second round??? Why did they not do the ballot so that each address could only apply for a certain number of tickets? I think that being able to apply for £35000 worth of tickets is unfair.

I have no problem with the way the ticketing ballot system was run. What I do have a problem with is the people who applied for tickets to events that they really have no interest in, all so that they could claim to have been a part of "the olympic experience" or to boost their chances in the ballot.

All I wanted as a kid was to swim at the Olympics and it almost came true in 2000 when I was selected for the national swim team. Unfortunately, a injury a few months before scuppered my chances and I was resigned to watching it on TV.

12 years later and it looks like I will be in the same position again due to an ill thought out ticketing strategy.

The system has failed sporting families. Surely there should of been a system to allocate to clubs of the sports participating, athletics, swimming, boxing etc the list is big. The UK has lost an opportunity to help encourage the youth and supporting parents.

I applied for £14k worth of tickets for 20 sessions. In every session i applied for the top price category and for only 2 tickets believing this to be the best way of securing seats. All ive ended up with is a debit of £906 which is either an evening Athletics or Swimming session.

The other sports i applied for i thought were going to be far less popular and easy to get tickets to : BMX, Mountain Bike, Triathlon, and Tennis. For the tennis i applied for 3 sessions and one of them was 2nd round tickets for about £125 each. I find it surprising and possibly even suspicious that i didnt even get these. The whole process has been done very arrogantly. Unfortunately Locog know how desperate people are to see the Olympics and have taken advantage of this accordingly.

As somebody who applied for tickets on 3 separate days and got nothing, I can't help but feel the system was not fair. Why couldn't we have had some proportionality in the allocations. I am a pensioner and have been close to the Olympic venue on more than one occassion and having saved for London, I am gutted that Lord Coe and his team have lost me my last chance to see Olympic events that were of interest.
I didn't like his attitude on the BBC the other day -- it seemed to me that he really felt above those of us who didn't succeed in his unfair lottery. The second offer cannot make up for the disappoinment so many of us feel.

We planned a weekend in London but only received one pair of tickets from those we asked for and it's not worth the trip from Edinburgh to see one event. My two diving tickets will be going back and it will be interesting to see what charge they make for returns. Can't same I'm enthused anymore. Och aye the noo.

I am very disappointed. I am the closest resident to the velodrome and have had to put up with roadworks, building works and an evolving development on my door step for 3 years... I applied for 7 tickets and received none. I think priority should have been made to those directly affected by the park.

Applied for tickets to Swimming, Gymnastics, Tennis, 100m final and Track Cycling, totalling £440, all early heats, except for 100m final, got none. Am eagerly awaiting my email from LOCOG about the second round. Also managed to register on the French website Eventeam2012. Of course it's now a first come first served bun-fight, but I feel like I have more control over that than the lottery. Did Sydney and Beijing have these problems? The ticket fiasco will have disillusioned many. Even more galling to read this week that FIFA Chiefs will be attending all the prestigious events. There needs to be more transparency, too much is being hidden. Aren't these the People's Games after all?

As recommended I went for a wide range of events at different prices for me and my two young sons. I really wanted swimming, Diving, Gymnastics, athletics and cycling and so went for them with a big price range but i also went for several other sports (Handball, Taekwondo, wrestling etc) as a back up.
Over 2 visa cards i went for 34 sessions (wish i had done more now!) I went for kid prices on most things because i wanted to be able to go for as many sports that i could fit in my £3500 budget but also try for some medal nights with a price range. Now if i had known there was seemingly so few concession tickets available i would have gone for the slightly more expensive tickets to these events. You couldn't put a price range in if going for concession tickets so now we have missed out on everything we WANTED to see but have Handball, wrestling etc tickets that were our back up and we are thus EXCLUDED from trying again because we was recommended to go for these duff events and i subsequently got tickets to sit at the back in these events, So YES the system is floored
'A Games for the British people'?!?! That couldn't be further from the truth! The likes of Sepp Blatter, his mate that wont vote for us getting a world cup because he wants an island back and the rest of his cronies get GIVEN tickets, The government TAKES 9000 tickets, Boris Johnson with his 'poor me got no tickets either' spin, despite his office getting a few THOUSAND tickets and sponsors who will make a fortune from having their brand splashed all over the games getting a few THOUSAND more makes this 'A Games for the Rich, corporate and their VIP buddies'!

I've managed to sign up for the French site but my French is non existent so i'm not even sure what i will have to do on the 13th June.

The British public conned again! If i have to watch it on TV it might as well be a million miles away! I just wanted my boys to be part of history, to witness the impressive surroundings and be inspired... but the Prawn sandwich brigade will be sitting laughing and enjoying themselves at my children's expense.

Truly gutted and absolutely fuming!

I agree with the other people who have just ended up with the smallest fraction of what they wanted. I too was 'successful' in my bid for tickets, but have ended up with a pair of tickets for the handball. While I appreciate that I know I will get into Olympic Park during the Games based on these tickets, I also have to wonder how worthwhile a trip to London is for my last minute on-a-whim addition to my application. Yet, because of this 'success' I am prevented from trying to get tickets for anything else which would make the trip worthwhile until ten days after people who got absolutely nothing get their chance. People who got nothing aren't the only ones disappointed with the process. What will there be left after ten days? Based on the demand that exists even I realise there won't be anything left. Ten days is too long, it should be reduced to one day. That would give those who got absolutely nothing a fair crack of the whip before opening it up to the rest of us disappointed.

'They have to manage the disappointment of the vast number of people who'd dreamed of watching the men's 100 metres final inside the Olympic stadium, but now know that they'll have to settle for seeing it on television instead.'

Vast number? No. Most people knew the odds were tiny for that particular event, it's the people going for the qualifiers for Hockey, Basketball, Archery and other smaller events , but getting nothing that are most annoyed.

I bet Paul Deighton and Lord Coe get their free tickets. They are merely putting themselves up for a massive fall when annoyed people get their revenge. How easy would it be for locals who live within sight of the Olympic park but got nothing to block a road, picket a tube station or hold up the progress of the torch?

In line with Chas's comment I cannot see why there wasn't an upper limit to the number of tickets that can be applied for thus allowing more applications to be granted at least some of their request.

Say limit to 4 tickets per person (except for athletes/competitors), this would also reduce the tout element as well.

I applied for table tennis and the early heats of the athletics and got nada and I was hoping my boy and I could experience the Olympic experience in my lifetime as I will not be able to afford it overseas.

As the article points out, Locog had an impossible task as everyone wants the premier events and many who fail to get them will moan. They maybe should have managed expectations better. The article is incorrect in saying that as the average ticket request was £500 and as half the applicants got none then the there are a million people who offered £500 and got nothing. It may be that half the applicants requested far less but there would still be an average of £500.

It was clear that the chances of getting the athletics or cycling finals would be low, so we applied for all of them to maximise chances. It was also clear that the lowest price band would be the most popular, and as a request at a higher price band also included the lower band it was better, if you could afford, it to go higher. We also as a couple both applied for the same events, reckoning that the chances of both getting the same event was slim but doubling the chances. In cash terms we got one fifth of what we asked for, and although it is not certain exactly what events, if we got the highest requested prices for each event (seems likely) then we have one cycling finals session, one athletics final session, two early round athletics sessions and a whole stack of fencing (in fact all the fencing we requested). Personally I think the key was asking for higher than the lowest prices (although we didn't go close to the top price band).

Paul Deighton, the chief exec of the London 2012 says in his clip that many London children will benefit from the 'ticket share' scheme distributed to schools. Given that the Olympics are being held in the school holidays, are these childrens' parents going to get a ticket too, or are schools expected to organise a school trip in the holidays? Given the experience so far, most of these childrens' parents won't have secured any tickets, so maybe parents of children in London schools should be lobbying their school to ensure they apply, as this might be their only chance to get a ticket. Probably only for football though...

Firstly, I just want to say a HUGE thank you to James Pearce - he has been literally the only source of decent and helpful information about the whole debacle otherwise known as the UK ticket ballot!

My family have been planning for years to attend as many Olympic events we could at London 2012 instead of having a family holiday. We applied for the maximum number of events (20) for the 4 of us (including 2 kids) - if we had got everything it would have come to £4500. I was very disappointed to only have £160 debited from my account (a miserly 3.5% success rate) for 2nd round tennis. We will be delighted to attend the tennis but also had dreams of the athletics, swimming, cycling, rowing, gymnastics and diving!

The lengths I have now gone to to keep our dream alive:

- Purchased tickets from Dertour (German reseller) for beach volleyball and canoeing (they did not have much left by the time LOCOG got round to debiting my account!)

- Purchased a package from Thomas Cook to include morning athletics and water polo (over £1000 for the 4 of us - with tickets only worth £228 of this) Insanely the package includes a hotel stay in Heathrow - which we won't even be using as we live closer than this - the hotel is totally the other side of London to both events!

- Entered the Danish ballot - we had to pay upfront for this and are awaiting results by 20th June - if we don't get tickets then the money will be refunded (I hope!)

- Pre-registered for French ticket sales! Now having to compile a complicated table of exactly what we have got/might got and thus what could potentially bid for from France!

LOCOG, could all of us poor applicants have a medal please - although the gold must undoubtedly go to you, James!

Total insanity!!!!!

So based on the numbers given, over half the applicants got nothing whilst the rest got on average EIGHT tickets each. Doesn't really sound fair.

But to be honest all I want it to take my son to see something. Don't really care what. I just want to say I was in the stadium.

But the system means I can't just say give me anything. I have to try and guess which events will be under subscribed and of course, I guessed wrong so got nothing.

But the more I look, the more I just see LOCOG creaming more and more cash from anywhere they can from monopolistic payment schemes with VISA through to Europes biggest shopping centre that you need to negotiate in order to get from the station to the stadium.

Is there any way of making money they haven't thought of yet?

This is not the peoples games it's the sponsors games and it makes me ashamed to be British.

I didn't really expect to get tickets for diving, but nothing for the water polo preliminaries? It will be interesting to see how many tickets are left for that in the second round.

And how many tickets will be unwanted from people who vastly over-subscribed and got more than they bargained for? These should be sold back BEFORE the next round of ticket sales.

I'm also wondering how many tickets have gone to applicants in the EU, seeing as they can apply for UK tickets in the same way we can apply for theirs.

London 2012 says on its website that the lottery for tickets would be the “fairest possible”. However, with 1.8m applicants for 6.6m tickets, the fairest possible system would have given every applicant an equal chance of some - at least two - tickets. Instead it seems that an average of 5 or 6 tickets has gone to each of less than half of all the applicants, because bids for each session were considered separately, without regard to the applicant’s total bid. As a result those willing (and able) to gamble the largest sum stood most chance of getting tickets. We have heard of a person who bid for a maximum of £36000 and received an allocation of £11000 (more than the credit limit on his card). Many people who did as London 2012's spokesman and website asked, and limited their bid to what they really wanted, received nothing at all. So, the system was not the “fairest possible”, given that (I think) most applicants’ wish was to participate in the ‘Olympic experience’, which could be met by enabling them to attend at least one event? The greedy people who put in very large bids should have been penalised by having their bids disregarded.

If we truly wanted to hold an Olympics for everyone no tickets would have been allocated (free of charge) to sponsors and other hanger's on. All tickets should have been one price and distributed by means of a lottery, one ticket for one person. But of course we live in the real world where privilege, wealth and contacts rule, and the common man gets nothing.

Pretty much the same story here.

My wife and I put a bid in for 8 events totalling £760. I posted the full list here - https://www.ldn2012.org/topic.php?id=21

Last week just £42 was deducted from our account. We are both bitterly disappointed. To add insult to injury, it now sounds like we have missed out on second chance tickets too!

Why has this process been such a debacle? Why is the only information available from news websites. Why can't LOGCO email everyone letting us all know what is going on?

If I see one tout flogging tickets then I will be so upset. I hope the full force of the law comes down on touts. They are scum.

I applied for £700 of tickets. £66 got taken - only possibility is for a session of handball. So because I got this session of handball I will be penalised in the next round of ticket sales, and not get a chance to order any more (well 10 days after the million who got nothing) If they had been up front about this second round before would I have applied for handball? Feel cheated...

Why is anyone surprised that the whole ticket allocation process has been one great big farce! Its obvious that all the best tickets were creamed off long long before poor joe public had a sniff at anything. Those in charge certainly didn't care about Mr Average did they? - The only way you stood a chance was by asking for amounts that you could never afford if you got them - but theres the irony, you never were going to get them now were you - does the phrase " couldn't organise a ^%^& up in a brewery come to mind ?

Contrary to apparently popular opinion, there was a limit on the tickets that could be applied for ... a maximum of 20 sessions, many of which had a maximum number of tickets permitted per session. I always thought that was way too high and that appears to have been borne out by the results.

When you have 6.6m tickets available, and 20m applications there are always going to be disappointed people, I am just surprised, and saddened, that more than half those applying have ended up with nothing, especially when you hear of people who will receive over £10k worth of tickets.

There probably isn't an entirely fair way to do this, and I think it is a reasonable compromise on the part of LOCOG to deduct money first, so that those who only get a few tickets but not the ones they REALLY wanted don't have the opportunity to engineer a failure of the payment in order to get out of paying for them.

It does strike me though that with effectively one third the amount of tickets available compared to applications made a system could not have been devised that more equitably distributed them.

Whilst I am very disappointed not to get any tickets at all, I accept it was a ballot and I only applied for a six tickets across three - relatively obscure - events (admittedly because I didn't fully understand the odds of having to pay out - but that's another rant!) in any case.

However to learn that around 45% of applicants bagged all the tickets on offer does sound terribly unfair.

Surely a better system would have been to weight more heavily in favour of applications with no tickets in all ballots until everybody had at least one set of tickets (except for where this physically wasn't possible)?

Perhaps I'm being overly-idealistic - but surely giving more people a couple of tickets is more in the Olympic spirit of everybody taking part than giving lots of tickets to a few....

Having said that, tickets or no tickets, I will probably go to London next summer just to be a part of the atmosphere.

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

Like others who have already posted, I am left puzzled and disillusioned by the whole process. I applied for 37 tickets across 14 sessions which would have cost me just over £3,700 if I had received them all. I applied for medium to high price tickets for every session and had also indicated that I would accept tickets in the lower price categories if not successful at the higher price. I did apply for tickets to the closing ceremony and 3 sessions of track cycling, where I knew the odds were low but also applied for badminton, canoeing, rowing and early athletics sessions. I've worked out that I received just 2 tickets to the rowing costing £100!

It's clear that it was not just the cheaper tickets that were over-subscribed ... or is there something we're not being told. How many tickets were there at the higher prices?

Like others, I wish I'd received nothing ... I would then have had a chance in the second round of ticket sales and could have bought tickets for an event where we could have gone as a family ... unfortunately my wife's work rota coincided with the day of rowing for which I have tickets, so she will miss out completely.

I read that our likely 2012 competitors and past champions had not received tickets (the article referenced Tom Daley's family not getting any). Surely there is provision for a certain number of tickets for the families of our teams (once they've been chosen)? If not, that's disgusting and ridiculous! Personally, I applied for £550-worth of tickets and got nothing, but I'm hoping that it will be free to stand on the route of the triathlon or marathon.

The whole process was definitely biased in favour of the wealthy.
The more you could afford to risk, the more lotteries you were entered into and therefore the more chance you stood of getting some tickets.
The people who could not afford to risk spending to much had to apply for a limited number of events, sometimes just one event, and therefore stood much less chance of getting anything. They should have designed the process to distribute the tickets across more applicants. Very unfair and very disappointing.

I believe there is a myth around what people have actually ended up with. I don't believe 45% ended up with lots of tickets each. At least that's not the impression I get from Twitter and other fora. And it certainly is not my experience. I have ended up with the smallest fraction of what I wanted, 2.3% in fact.

I was 'successful' in my bid for a pair of tickets for the handball (out of a mixture of price levels and different events). While I appreciate that I know I will get into Olympic Park during the Games based on these tickets, I also have to wonder how worthwhile a trip to London is for my last minute on-a-whim addition to my application. Yet, because of this 'success' I am prevented from trying to get tickets for anything else which would make the trip worthwhile until ten days after people who got absolutely nothing have their chance.

People who got nothing aren't the only ones disappointed with the process. What will there be left after ten days? Based on the demand that exists even I realise there won't be anything left. Ten days is too long. It should be reduced to one day. Or there should be a limit to how much they can buy. That would give those who got absolutely nothing a fair crack of the whip before opening it up to the rest of us who are disappointed.

Another blog which reveals the appalling selfishness of some people.
One didn't get her ticket for the Closing Ceremony, so she would like to see it ruined by rain.
Another wants people to block roads or sabotage the Torch Relay.
It really makes me wonder what kind of lives these people live.

James, please. We're not daft enough to think we'd all be able to watch the men's 100m. I didn't apply for that, and those who did will have known it was a long shot. But like anyone who bid for a substantial number of tickets, I hoped I'd be able to see something - and the system should have provided for that. As Chas says, it's galling to get nothing when one bloke's got £11k. A real shame I and my kids - and many like us - may not now witness this great event on our doorstep.

I'm going to be positive a celebrate the fact that the Olympics are so successful that thousands of people are complaining about the pre-lims of the archery, gymnastics, hockey etc. being sold-out.

I applied for £800+ and was unsuccessful, so like most people I am disappointed. I would be interested to know the % of tickets that are going to sponsors/overseas customers etc compared to other Olympics. The rate of sales here suggests we should see every single venue full for every session which can't be said for 2008, and I seem to remember then that sponsors uptake was lower than anticipated.

yes, it seems those of us who got only one session (for me out of ten applied for) will perhaps miss out most in the long-run as there won't be much left after the ten days available to those who got nothing.

We applied for £800 and got zero -- really wanted to take my two young kids, who live near the site and are really eager to see the Olympics. Thanks to the BBC, I managed to register for the French site last night with a couple of hours to go -- cheers chaps! -- and am now brushing up on O-Level French for next week. Just a couple of questions to James...


(i) "The good news is that only around 4,000 of you managed to do so, and you'll have exclusive access when the French tickets are put on sale on June 13th."

Any idea of how many tickets in total the French have -- and how many people in France have registered? How much appetite is there in France (have they forgiven London for pipping France back in 2005)?

(ii) "when the French tickets are put on sale on June 13th"

Have your contacts in France got any idea a quelle heure on June 13 this will be? French website gives no clues at all.

cheers for your help

I dont understand why people didnt do what i did.

I had a budget of £2000 but bid for £5500, knowing there is more of chance of me winning the lottery than getting full amount, so got £1500 in end


Happy Days

My family applied for a number of things including the outdoor mountain biking and equestrian cross country. Now correct me if i'm wrong but these are based in the countryside? I can't fathom how 40,000 tickets for a number of days seems to have gone in a countryside setting! I used to be a believer in the olympic ideals but i've completely lost my interest as I think they have lost out to capitalist schmoozing. The legacy of this games? greed.

by the way, the best sporting event on the planet is the Ryder Cup (still a ticket lottery). Sport at its finest.

Londoners should have got priority seeing as we in affect sponsored the event in the first place.
I also never understand when buying tickets for anything, the ridiculous administration fee.

Sebastian Coe you are still talking the same rubbish you tried on down here in Cornwall.There should have been a maximum limit in the first round of tickets.Simple.
There goes my only chance of getting into a live olympic stadium.I have loved the olympics since Tokyo 1964.I was ecstatic when we won the bid now I wish the French had won.It would have been easier to get tickets.Maybe Steve Ovett should have sorted it.
He was always the better man.

I thought I chose wisely, 2 tickets for the early round of the table tennis and 4 tickets for one of the early sessions in the athletic stadium, total spend £200. I considered that to be a fair bet and what I could afford. What did I get - nothing. Does that mean that table tennis has become a really popular sport and that all the seats have gone for every session? I don't think so, apparently only the opening and closing ceremony and mens 100m final have "sold out". How come I didn't get any tickets? Don't think I shall be bothering with my so called "second chance" if they couldn't get it right in the first place then why should I. It will be interesting to see whether on the day all the events are packed out or whether they will be giving tickets away to ensure we don't look stupid. What a farce! Still I expect we will see a flurry of "competions" we can win tickets.

I expect we will see just about every celebrity at the games. How did they manage to get their tickets?
There is one system for them and one for the rest of us without so much cash!!

My family got no tickets, and although keen on specific sports, would just have been happy to see anything. Why wasn't there a category for random tickets to even out the numbers? And will unused corporate block bookings
be released to buy on the day?

Very Disappointed, I live ten minutes walk from Europe's biggest construction site and have suffered for it for the past two years, traffic congestion, road closures and dust. Lots of dust, and now no tickets. No regard for local people what so ever. These games will be memorable for me, but for all the wrong reasons.

I applied for just 4 tickets at a total cost of £200 - it's all I could afford.
I got NOTHING at all!!!

Now I face higher priced tickets and probably won't manage to get any... I thought the Olympics were for the public so WHY are so many tickets not available to the public? Why didn't corporate tickets have to be applied for the same way as the public ones? Where's the fairness or equality in having tickets for one and not the other? We are supposed to celebrate sports and encourage our children to take up sports and keep fit, yet getting tickets is practically impossible for average income families. Major Fail!
I may well be off abroad and rent my house out instead...

This has been a farce. people are rightly annoyed at a system that seems unfair. Surely even LOCOG have realised that the one thing that always gets up people's noses is any system that delivers unfair outcomes? And why should we think that, with their track record, the second stage will be any better? Their organisation hasn't been up to the task so far - e.g. arrangements to phone them - so I have no confidence that they will run the technicalities of the second stage any better, let alone deliver fairer outcomes.

What I have deduced from talking to colleagues and friends is that those of us who applied for low key, non-finals, events in the lowest price brackets were the least successful. I believe the reason for this is that these were the only categories where child and OAP pricing was available. For example - for many events a family and two children aged 7 & 9 would have paid £56 for a session. In the next price category up, the same family will have to pay £160 for a session.

What LOCOG should have done, was to make some sort of child pricing available in all but the very top price categories. I suspect that very few children will actually get to see the games. Wasn't it supposed to be an inspiration for the children of Britain? I think its failed there....

I put in for five sessions @ £56 each for the family in an assortment of sports, and got nothing. Not sure that I can afford or wish to pay £160+ for a single session.

I was really excited about the prospect of attending the olympics in my own country we considered our application as a family for a long time before bidding for approx £900 worth of tickets admittedly in the lower price category but for several different sports. We have got no tickets and our choice is further limited due to my son's disability and him being a wheelchair user thus limiting the available seats to us as a family anyway. I am therefore not hopeful for the second ballot even more so with this being on a first come first served basis without a seperate disabled ticket number.
I wish everyone well in future application process but the excitment in our house is very muted at the moment

As others have said, I find it somewhat suspicious the way tickets have been allocated (or perhaps that should be 'NOT allocated'!).
The fact that the proportion of seats, or areas within the stadia that each price bracket applies to are not revealed really does give the impression that the organisers are waiting to see how applications are spread over the various price bands before deciding how to allocate them within the arenas.

I voiced this opinion before finding that I got no tickets at all from my £2000 application, so no sour grapes here.

I've applied for many sporting events, concerts and the like in my time, and every time I have been aware of whereabouts in the stadium my application was for. Quite how the Olympic organisers can justify such a secretive system is beyond me.

It's so unfair that some people get 10K worth of tickets and other people don't get any. Surely a fair system would be to put people who have already won one lot, at the the back of the queue for other tickets? That way more people will get tickets not just the greedy few who have thousands to blow.

It's not complicated, it's not hard to understand, why are the organisers not capable of getting it right?

I only applied for the event I wanted to see, which was the equestrian eventing over two days and just for me and a friend, 4 tickets in all.
I got nothing. Surely there should be a better system for people like me, who genuinely want to see a specific event, dont lose out. Maybe the person who pays for the tickets should have their name and date of birth printed on the tickets.They should be one of the ticket holders at the venue on the day of the event, and they should have to prove this with photo I.D. Maybe then genuine supporters of their chosen sport will not be disappointed.

Rob 12 Yards, Post 55

Not everyone has £5,500 available to them. Don't be so crass. There's a lot of disappointment here. At least me and the wife had the sense not to tell the kids they were going to see the Olympics! Which despite my application for five events appears to be the case.....

I think there's a bit of a myth around what people have actually ended up with. I don't believe 45% ended up with lots of tickets each. At least that not the impression I get from Twitter and other fora. And it is certainly not my experience. I have ended up with the smallest fraction of what I wanted, 2.3%.

I was 'successful' in my bid for a pair of tickets to Handball. While I appreciate that I know I will get into Olympic Park during the Games based on these tickets, I also have to wonder how worthwhile a trip to London is for my last minute on-a-whim addition to my application. Yet, because of this 'success' I am prevented from trying to get tickets for anything else which would make the trip worthwhile until ten days after people who got absolutely nothing have their chance.

People who got nothing aren't the only ones disappointed with the process. What will be there be left after ten days of second chance sales? Based on the demand that exists even I realise there won't be anything left. Ten days is too long. It should be reduced to one day, or there should be a limit to how much can be bought. That would give those who got absolutely nothing a fair crack of the whip before opening it up to the rest of us who are disappointed.

Everyone on here have said exactly what most people are thinking...all I say is this is so typical of our country. Such a let down. Other countries much laugh at us so much...you'd think the people in charge would be embarrassed by stuff like this by now.

The Olympics have held two fingers up to Londoners, treating them with contempt. They should not be surprised when Londoners return the gesture...

Its starting to look like the only legacy from these games is the high cost to stage in the first place, something Londoners in particular will be paying for for years to come. Add to that the ticket fiasco and frankly it leaves nothing positive from the games. It does seem we in this country have a habit of shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to costs for events and tickets. Test matches are priced beyond the means of the average worker, football is overpriced especially at premiership level. Whatever happened to playing sport for sports sake and sport for all? Big money, the rich and speculators have taken it all out of reach for most.

can we not all just be honest and say we misjudged it? i bid for about £250 worth of tickets and got none, which is disappointing as i had expected to get most if not all of them. Most people seem to think that bidding for £1000s gives you a better chance, but when everyone does it then it just negates itself, at least theres a second round which will presumably separate most of those who "really care" from those who bid on a whim

Lucky me.i applied for a whole load of tickets and used my own card.unfortunately,my wife was unable to remember her security number and
asked me to apply for her tickets using my card.Guess what.from the amount withdrawn my wife will receive two tickets.i managed not one.Who is ruled out of the second round for ticket application.
All exacerbated by the fact i have several friends who live in the north and were lucky enough to get tickets.they have asked to stay at our house as we live in London I have decided to go on holiday,well away from the Olympic city.

James,
Could you find out if all the governmental and council applications for tickets were filled?

I have been a strong supporter of the London Games so far but not anymore. We applied for tickets worth approx. £2,000 and got nothing. The tickets should clearly have been allocated on a percentage basis so that someone who was successful in one or two electronic ballots would have been disregarded for subsequent ballots. Considering we have paid more council tax in London because of the Games it is truly insulting not to get anything.

This could have been a big party for London but a year before the Games the organisers have managed to alienate 1million supporters!

LingfieldGambler post 70

But thats my point i dont have £5,000 to spend and if in the very very very lucky case i got that amount, i would simply have resold my tickets as i went for good events. Did people think if they applied for £500 then they would get them, its naive and daft! Bit of logic wins the day im afraid

@James Pearce

The next stage of ticket sales should not be a free for all but another ballet open to everyone again.

This time though once a purchaser has been selected by the system to buy tickets they should be excluded until everyone else has been successful or all the tickets run out so the widest number of people can go view Olympic events.

Those who over purchased and wish to give back tickets should be allowed to with offer them for sale but under the condition if no one is selected to buy them they must.

The first round shows the clear flaws that can be removed with the simple rule of one purchase per purchaser until everyone has been successful and the ticket seller already have the system in place.

Testing_Times 74 for a start test cricket is so costly because it is an event that lasts the whole day, football lasts 90 min and is not over priced unless your a londoner. Im a wolves season ticket holder for £370. £19.50 even to watch wolves!

Olympics is a one-off so you should pay a premium, i have been SAVING FOR 3 YEARS to pay for what i got. Im not rich or wealthy, just moneywise. Everyone on the average wage could save up £2000 in 3 years.

Our family applied for £9,500 worth of tickets - 60 sessions, 200 tickets. Received absolutely nothing. There is something mathematically incorrect with the fact that 50%+ of people got nothing whereas those who were successful received about 8 tickets each (6.6million tickets divided by 800,000 odd successful applicants, if figures in press are to be believed). Perhaps someone can work out the probability of this - think it might be Poisson distribution?).

Applying for only a few tickets but not that many leaves me disappointed but not surprised. My main disappointment lies in the fact that nobody I know has got the been successful and it seems nobody they know has been successful either. It may as well be in Paris now as far as I'm concerned. They could deal with the debt as well.

I'm hoping to be a volunteer for the entirety of the Games, so just took a punt for the Opening Ceremony and the 100m final session mainly so I could go through the process of applying. Predictably, I got nothing.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend's application consisted of just two Opening Ceremony tickets at £20.12. She got them. So no, it isn't balanced in favour of the wealthy whatsoever: it's complete and total luck.

80.At 19:17 7th Jun 2011, F1 im sorry but its a buisness not a charity! over £500million comes from tickets, cant give just one application to those who apply. I mean come on!!!

At the time of writing, there appear to be 77 people who did not get tickets/didn't get enough tickets who have commented on this article. Can any of them explain to me why they are more entitled to the 2 tickets I have got than I am? And more entitled than the other people who were successful in the application process.
I'm disappointed I did not get more of my chosen events but then again I didn't expect to get them all anyway. Why is it a problem if all the tickets have been sold to people like me? I'm sorry for people who did not get any tickets and I don't think they are bad people. Why do so many people think that I am a bad person because I was successful in the application process.

I'm actually being put off the whole Olympic idea by this, corporations get tickets so some fat cats who besides golf and rugby have no other interest in sport get tickets only to be able to show off, when true sport fans and children (what a fantastic opportunity will it be for all the kids to actually see the culmination of a human beings effort and hard work) cannot get it regardless of whether they or their parents work their back sides to be able to afford it one year in advance.
Shame on you Olympic Comitee and London 2012 organisers !!! These Games were meant to inspire people for greatness as Baron Pierre de Coubertin intended, instead they create hate and even bigger feel of social injustice.

I'm one of the many who has had their card cancelled since the applications were made (in my case, because my bank warned me they thought it had been cloned). So, technically, I could still get the email/call telling me to provide new payment details.

But I won't be holding my breath.

The whole process has been a complete shambles. You've got to hand it to LOCOG, they've played a blinder. They duped us into believing that the Games would be accessible, by offering pay-your-age children's tickets and OAP rate tickets, then anecdotal evidence suggests that a disproportionate amount of those of us who applied for such tickets have ended up with nothing (about a third of my application was for my OAP parents). Are we really expected to believe that this was a mere coincidence?

LOCOG also made a big song and dance about "only apply for what you can afford", consequently those of us who did so, and aren't loaded, have ended up with little or nothing, whilst the rich and the reckless who were in more ballots due to risking more money, end up with more.

They're now making a big song and dance of second chance sales. Whoop-di-doo, so I - along with a MILLION OTHERS - get first refusal on a few hundred thousand football/handball tickets that I didn't want in the first place, and the tiny handful of remaining tickets at prices I can't afford for events I've already applied for in low - mid price bands. Am I supposed to take some comfort from this,

Also, is it just me, or does the maths not add up?

1.8 million people apply for 20 million tickets.

6.6 million tickets actually on sale to the public.

0.8 million people actually get anything at all.

Anecdotal evidence, online surveys etc suggest that those who did apply for tickets received 10 - 15% of their applied for amount.

Theoretically, that means there are a LOT of unsold tickets, despite loads of us having applied? Because with the events we actually WANT to go see, there are hardly any tickets available to the public! They now expect us to make up for the shortfall in ticketing revenue that this is bound to cause by being grateful for what we can get, and paying to see sports we have no interest in! No thanks!

We applied for £700 of tickets and received nothing. Right now I feel frustrated. When the first tickets hit ebay/seatwave I will be feeling very different. Perhaps when Lord Coe and LOCOG starts to see the touting they might actually see how offering a ridiculous upper limit was such a stupid idea.

Well look on the bright side. For the cost of a good ticket to a major event you can buy a good large screen LED 3D television set to watch in on that you will still have long after the Olympics have finished.
Also, did anyone seriously believe that the allocation of tickets would be fair, even though the lottery buyers and tax paying masses are actually paying for it?

@55
"I dont understand why people didnt do what i did.

I had a budget of £2000 but bid for £5500, knowing there is more of chance of me winning the lottery than getting full amount, so got £1500 in"

It's very simple to understand, Rob. If I'd followed your strategy but incorrectly predicted the odds , I might not have been able to pay my rent. Or possibly eat, depending on whatever random date my card was debited an unknown amount without warning.

You say you 'knew' you wouldn't get the full amount but, who knows? Lots of people here didn't get the tickets they just tossed into the pot as 'safe' options, the whole thing has clearly been unpredictable.

I was desperate to go to these Games but can't afford to be foolhardy with my finances. I've saved a certain amount for tickets but couldn't risk more. If the system even let you know 'your card will be debited x on x date', I might have been able to arrange a loan or something - that's how much I want to go! - but I can't manage not knowing whether it's likely to be hundreds or thousands debited off my card until it actually happens. You're clearly in a position to take that risk; I'm pleased for you and hope you enjoy yourself, but the system clearly favours the more well-off.

So this is the fairest ever system for ticket distribution ever Mr Coe? I think not. I'd love to see the breakdown of all the available seats to all the events, the corporate allocations, the 'hangers on' allocations including Mr Coes allocation. An absolutely disgraceful shambolic system designed to make sure all the organisers and anyone with deep enough pockets to gamble with are catered for leaving a handful of tickets for the public. You should be ashamed, but lets face it you won't be because 'I'm alright Jack!'

I also failed to get any tickets from eight sessions applied for. Hey ho, I guess this means the British sport lovers will support the paralympics in their droves instead...?

Did Seb Coe's Dad get to see his Olympic performances? If my daughter qualifies for the team I won't get to see her compete. I have been all over the world to see her compete but when it comes to a home competition I will miss out. Can't say I am impressed - I just hope the games are better organised for all those lucky enough to have tickets.

why are all the comments awaiting moderation?? way to kill a conversation

the whole system is rubbish. like others i applied for c500 worth across 3 sessions and got nothing. realistically applying in the first instance was probably futile, especially when half the tickets had been skimmed off the top and werent even up for grabs anyway.

what will be most interesting will be to find out how the tickets were spread across the price points, surely a freedom of information question some time soon.

second chance tickets? whats the point, we were already encouraged to go for the tickets we wanted first time round and werent succeccful so and option to cough up for a more expensive ticket for a meaningless early round is hardly appealing. no thanks lord coe.

There was nothing wrong with the ticketing ballot system. It was a fair way of doing things, in my opinion. The problem was with how some people used the system - in that they put their name down for more than they could afford for events they weren't that bothered in.

What a load of whinging bores most of you are!!

"I've lost interest in the whole thing now..."

"Now Im not going I hope it rains"

I applied for £600 quid+ of tickets and looks like I got the football at my local stadium only... Luckier than some and I hope those who have lucked-out on the other events have a great time... The rest of us can suck-it-up and make the best.

An average application for twelve tickets shows just how greedy the process encouraged people to be, thereby preventing a wider distribution, as more than half of all applicants have now found to their cost. Expectations could have been better managed by an initial lower maximum number of tickets being in place, which could then have been increased dependant on first-stage take-up.

We applied logic, selected second tier events, for more events than we wanted, potentially spending £3k, went for the price range option B to D on each event AND still got nothing!!