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Race for 2m Olympic tickets 'like the Tube at rush hour'
Matthew Beard, Mark Blunden and Rob Parsons24 Jun 2011
Hundreds of thousands of Olympic tickets were snapped up within hours of going on sale today - but many sports fans missed out as the official website struggled to cope with demand.
All but eight of the remaining 24 sports sold out barely three hours after the sale opened at 6am for applicants who had missed out in last month's ballot.
Today was dubbed "Frantic Friday", with 2.3 million tickets up for grabs in a stampede for seats greater than for Glastonbury or major pop concerts. Among the first sell-outs were 40,000 seats for athletics, hockey, basketball and archery.
But many people who had risen early to be at their computers complained their applications crashed repeatedly, and when they were got back online their desired sports had sold out.
Some applicants said they had to resubmit orders up to 15 times, and many were unsure whether these had gone through. They face an anxious wait because Locog will not be able to confirm their allocation for at least 24 hours, as the website has been designed for a ballot rather than taking orders on a first-come-first-served basis.
Games organiser Locog admitted that for about 20 minutes after the virtual box office opened they had been unable to process most applications, though they insisted the website did not crash.
Up to 1.2 million hopefuls left empty-handed after last month's ballot were entitled to the second-chance sale, and Locog has insisted the Ticketmaster-designed website could cope. Before the ballot closed last month, the London 2012 website crashed under a last-minute wave of applications.
Organisers Locog likened today's troubles to a Tube station at rush hour, saying that demand was such that many people were being held "at the gate".
Locog head of new media Alex Balfour, who managed to get athletics tickets, said: "Managing our ticketing system is like managing a crowded Tube station and my team are the people at the barriers updating the white boards."
Sixteen sports sold out this morning and seats for a further 21 sports had gone in the ballot. By 9.30am remaining seats were for boxing, canoe sprint, judo, weightlifting, freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling and volleyball. Tickets for football, with 1.7 million up for grabs, were also plentiful.
Among the winners was Mayor Boris Johnson who is in line for tickets to women's beach volleyball, basketball and equestrian events in Greenwich Park. But he failed on athletics. He said: "After my disappointment of missing out last time I am glad my route of getting up at dawn paid off. I particularly look forward to joining my former MP colleagues at the beach volleyball."
Hours before the sale opened Games chiefs removed top tickets - £725 seats to the athletics on 10 August - from sale after they realised they had already been sold in the ballot. Triple Olympic gold medallist Bradley Wiggins branded the system a "shambles" after failing to get tickets in the ballot for his family.
Wiggins, from Maida Vale, accused organisers of prioritising sponsors over athletes who have each been given two tickets to their events. He said: "It's a bit of a shambles. I'd love to have my family there. We're just athletes. I think we are low down the list."
Computer games: Website crashes, ticket selections vanish and applicants are left empty-handed
Family Misfortune
Hockey fanatic Veladi Ravikiran, an IT specialist with City investment bank UBS, raced home from his night shift to get online for 6am, but failed to secure any tickets.
Mr Ravikiran, 34, from East Ham, has arranged visas for his mother and father to visit London from India so they could experience the Games.
He was looking forward to soaking up the Olympic atmosphere with his wife Nageswari, 30, and son, Sridatta, three. His original ballot application for £1,050 worth of tickets for events including the opening ceremony failed, and he found it impossible to get online today.
"By the time I managed to get through it said every hockey game in every price band was unavailable," he said. "My father loves hockey, which is the national game of India, and I used to play it a lot at college."
'It was a shambles'
David Taylor called the ticketing system "shambolic" after it crashed more than 10 times as he tried to buy athletics and volleyball tickets.
Mr Taylor, 46, from Putney, had applied for £5,000 worth of tickets in the ballot in eight events, including diving and synchronised swimming, but got nothing. He touched down at Heathrow today from South Africa and logged on in the business class lounge at 5.59am.
He said: "I was trying for £95 athletics tickets and £55 volleyball tickets, but it kept crashing. After 45 minutes, I was ready to smash my computer on the floor."
Mr Taylor, who runs the Brandgym marketing consultancy, finally secured about £700 worth of tickets for his family including ones for the 110-metre hurdles and men's 200 metres on August 7.
'Bizarre system'
Despite being denied two £20 tickets to see the football in the ballot, Rebecca Carrington claimed she was able to log on today and buy another two at £20 each.
Ms Carrington, 25, a merchandiser, said she was delighted the tickets were still available but was baffled by the ticketing process.
She lives in Islington but was looking forward to watching a match in St James's Park in her native Newcastle. She said: "I went online at 7.30am and chose the same tickets I wanted months ago. You expect a few problems but this was a bizarre way of managing things."
'I'm furious'
Father-of-two Graham Pugh said the system descended into "farce" after he tried to change his athletics ticket selection, only to find they had disappeared.
Since 2005, Mr Pugh, 44, has promised his sports-mad son George, 12, that the family would go to the Games, but lost out in the ballot. Today, the creative director from Teddington eventually secured tickets for athletics and hockey, and will go with George, wife Caroline, and daughter Clara, nine.
He said: "I'm pleased but furious about the way the whole thing was managed."
Q & A
What happens next?
If you applied in the second chance sale you will find out within 48 hours if you have been successful. The sales system is not entirely live (it was built for the original ballot) so in theory you could have applied for tickets that appeared available online but had already been sold. The risk of this happening is higher where lots of people bought tickets for the same session at once.
The current sales stage, for the 1.2 million people who got no tickets in the ballot, closes after 10 days. There will then be a third opportunity for those who got some or all of their allocation in the ballot.
Are there any further opportunities?
Yes. A further 1.3 million tickets will go on sale once Locog finalises seating capacities in the venues. These will be offered on a first come first served basis. Those who applied in the original ballot will have to rejoin the queue.
Reader views (30)
The ballot for London 2012 tickets could have been more equitable. A fairer ticket allocation system (no less lucrative for Locog) would have been a ‘round-robin’ ballot of ticket applicants, rather than a ballot of tickets. Whilst there was a random ballot for each over-subscribed ticket, this process failed to take into account the overall distribution of tickets. Accordingly, those who could afford to bid for many tickets stood a better chance than those who could only afford to bid for a few. On the other hand, a ballot of ticket applicants would have given equal weight to everyone, regardless of the number of tickets they had bid for.
- Neil, Middlesex, 27/06/2011 16:53
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A fairer ticket allocation system would have been...
1. An application window, in which London 2012 ask people:
- Which tickets they’d like to buy.
- The order of preference for their chosen tickets.
- The maximum total sum (ceiling) they would be prepared to pay for tickets.
2. After the application window closes, any under-subscribed tickets would be allocated automatically, regardless of preference (to ensure bums on seats).
3. For all over-subscribed tickets:
- A lottery would determine the order in which people received their first available preference.
- Once someone is allocated their first available preference, they would then go to the back of the queue for more tickets, until everyone had been drawn from the ballot.
- Once everyone has been drawn from the ballot, this process would be repeated as many times as necessary, in order to allocate over-subscribed tickets.
- Applicants would continue to go forward to subsequent rounds of the ballot, either until they had spent their specified maximum, or until their preferences are no longer available.
- If, during this process, any tickets ceased to be over-subscribed, they would then be allocated automatically, regardless of preference (to ensure a sell-out crowd).
If Locog had organised the ballot in this way, tickets would have been more evenly distributed. And not only would more people have been allocated tickets, they would also have been allocated their preferred tickets.
- Neil, Middlesex, 27/06/2011 16:52
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My cousin and I applied for over £4500 tickets each in the ballot. Assuming getting tickets for athletics would be difficult, we doubled up on most of the athletics and asked for 3 evenings of athletic games (two being week days) together with other sports.
We didn't get a single ticket for anything! So we decided to apply for the second chance tickets last Friday. I got online before 6am and managed to add athletic tickets for Aug 7th morning and some tickets for hockey in the basket before 6.10am. After some trouble in submitting the application with problems experienced on the website I eventually submitted the application just before 6.25am. I received confirmation of my application timed at 6.25.
Yesterday I received the email from London 2012 saying that I've been allocated only the tickets for hockey. No athletics tickets at all!
I am being deliberately pushed out of getting the tickets for athletics, considering Steve's post about his friends getting a number of tickets below. There is nothing fare about the process.
- San Elan, New Malden, UK, 27/06/2011 16:31
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Up yours for getting in early! That's what LOCOG have said to millions.
My wife and I both applied for around £1500 of tickets. Her keenest sport being athletics and horse events, mine being beach volleyball (I'm a simple guy at heart).
Anyway, we manage to secure 2 tickets to rowing and 2 to shooting. Some may say we're lucky, but are we.
Two sets of friends who got nothing applied in the second round. We asked them to get us some as we are BANNED from buying because we got something.
Both secured many many tickets. 1 has 18 tickets in 3 slots for athletics, plus many other sports. The other secured 11 athletics tickets, plus beach volleyball, and quite a few other sports.
How is that fair to those who applied in ballot, and genuinely thought it was best to apply early. This also makes me think that "Boris didn't get any" was a PR shot, he'll get some in the second round of course.
Anyway, I've got some tickets now albeit via a very strange route.
What a complete farce. LOCOG should publicly apologise (if they haven't already).
- Steve, Surrey, UK, 27/06/2011 13:50
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I am angry at the Olympic organisers. I have got ZERO tickets. Lord Coe should be fired for HIS DECISION to give 50% of the opening ceremony tickets to the Sponsors.
I am going to boycott any company that has sponsored the Olympics. Sponsporship should mean having your name associated with the Olympics, not the right to scoop 50% of the tickets.
- W.L., London, 26/06/2011 01:10
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Surely it would have been fairer to say that each credit card could only buy, say, 4 tickets. At the most 6. Then a lot more people would have got tickets - after all the Londoners did pay a big chunk for these Games. It is hardly fair that if someone could max their credit card out and apply for it all they should get the most. I have seen kids schools open days better organised.
- Amber in Mitchaml., mitcham surrey, 25/06/2011 09:48
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I realise the frustration felt by everyone trying to secure Olympic tickets I consider myself lucky to have got just two of the tickets I applied for. The question that springs to mind for me though is not that the process is unfair or biased rather than why no one has commented that they issue is the size of the venues.
Yes the games organisers are touting that there are 6.6 million tickets available but it does not take a genius to realise that a large percentage of these are for football.
In defence of lacog I do remember that one of the prime concerns for the Olympic bid was that we [London] should avoid the mistakes of Athens and Barcelona and the tax payer would not be left with lots of huge white elephant sporting venues that would never be filled once the Olympics were over.
Perhaps what we are seeing here is the downside to this policy where for the sake of Londoners being left with a financial mill stone of having huge unused venues gathering dust many people will unfortunately miss out on this once in a lifetime experience.
Perhaps with hindsight lacog will realise that they should have given more thought to capacity (especially for the main stadium) which after all has been constructed with the ability to be reduced in size after the games, With this in mind perhaps a games capacity of 100k – 120k would have been more realistic? This could then have been reduced down to a more sensible figure post games.
- Robert Wakeford, East Sussex, 24/06/2011 18:12
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I realise the frustration felt by everyone trying to secure Olympic tickets I consider myself lucky to have got just two of the tickets I applied for. The question that springs to mind for me though is not that the process is unfair or biased rather than why no one has commented that they issue is the size of the venues.
Yes the games organisers are touting that there are 6.6 million tickets available but it does not take a genius to realise that a large percentage of these are for football.
In defence of lacog I do remember that one of the prime concerns for the Olympic bid was that we [London] should avoid the mistakes of Athens and Barcelona and the tax payer would not be left with lots of huge white elephant sporting venues that would never be filled once the Olympics were over.
Perhaps what we are seeing here is the downside to this policy where for the sake of Londoners being left with a financial mill stone of having huge unused venues gathering dust many people will unfortunately miss out on this once in a lifetime experience.
Perhaps with hindsight lacog will realise that they should have given more thought to capacity (especially for the main stadium) which after all has been constructed with the ability to be reduced in size after the games, With this in mind perhaps a games capacity of 100k – 120k would have been more realistic? This could then have been reduced down to a more sensible figure post games.
- Robert Wakeford, East Sussex, 24/06/2011 18:11
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Regarding Mittal, I think the comments below miss the point. It's not unfair per se that he's got loads of tickets in return for loads of money, the unfairness relates to the following:-
- Mittal's payments were by way of sponsorship. This means that his company's name will be plastered all over the ghastly steel tower he's erected at the Olympic site, and will feature no doubt in the official Olympic brochure and various other places. That should have been what his sponsorship money brought him, not the avalanche of free tickets which were thrown in.
- more seriously, the unfairness arises because Mittal made a voluntary commercial decision to sponsor the Olympics. He decided how much to pay, and knew exactly what level of sponsorship, and how many tickets, he would receive in return. Contrast this with taxpayers, who have had absolutely no choice but to contribute the vast majority of the funding for the Olympics, and in return have no guarantee whatsover of any return. As we've seen, only a tiny percentage of taxpayers have received tickets under LOCOGs opaque and arbitrary ticketing system.
But, as has been noted below, the charade will go ahead and we'll all be told by Coe what a great success it's been and how much the country has benefited....in reality only true beneficiaries are Coe and his cronies.
And as I've said before on these comment boards, just wait until they start flogging the Olympic assets at knockdown prices after the Games end...
- GS, London, 24/06/2011 16:17
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Forgive me for saying this, but here I am believing that the United Kingdom was suffering from severe austerity and that everyone is "hard-up!" Here we are people willing to spend not just a few pounds, but hundreds or thousands So what is one to believe? Is the UK living with austerity or not?
- Arthur Lincoln, Roeselare, Belgium, 24/06/2011 15:41
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A single pair of £45 volleyball tickets purchased for a mens prelim round, thats it, nothing else I wanted (or not at the price offered anyway). But the purchase was quick and straightforward at 10.30 am! I'm much more interested in the tickets coming up in december and praying I can actually get the swimming, diving or water polo I really want to see.
- redsquare, london, 24/06/2011 15:32
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I really don't understand why everyone is being so negative. I was more than pleased to get a pair of tickets for one of the equestrian events. My partner wasn't so lucky and was up at 5.55am to try to secure tickets.I would like to see the "moaners" try to do a better job. Do you expect the Olympic Committee to come around to your houses dishing out the tickets? Or would you prefer queuing for several days. Obviously the website was going to have high volumes this morning.... as a website would for a popular event. Sitting at your computer for an hour or so isn't really a hardship is it. I think they have tried their best and done what is most fair and has been a very easy to follow system.
- Angharad, London, 24/06/2011 14:38
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@Sebastion Co-Profiteer - The 2012 London Olymipics have cost the British tax payer - £23,000,000,000.
That is approximately £500 for every man, woman and child.
- Hansel, London, 24/06/2011 09:59
That kind of puts into perspective the 67p it costs every man, woman and child per annum for the Royal family.
- Impartial view, London, 24/06/2011 13:25
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There were very few tickets left for events I had any interest in and most of those were ridiculously overpriced.
Why would anyone pay £100 to watch a basketball game when you don't even know who is playing? When I go to the US on my hols I can watch a game for 50 bucks in a decent seat - and see a good game.
Many have jumped on the Olympic bandwagon to say 'I WAS THERE' when in fact they will end up paying over the odds for below average performaces.
I'll wait until these tickets start to appear for resale and then maybe they will be realistically priced. Even then the hassle of getting to the venues is already putting me off going anywhere near the OG.
- Uncle Paulie, London UK, 24/06/2011 12:30
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I still have no tickets without the Poles the place would not have been built,WHERE ARE MY TICKETS
- Plovdic, London, 24/06/2011 11:54
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Most of the corporate sponsors of this already tired event are tax dodgers. It is small beer to throw in a few million quid when they are avoiding paying billions in tax. If you want proof of a 'them and us' society then watch the camera resting on the faces of politicians, captains of industry, bankers and celebs at the opening/closing ceremonies. Afterwards there will be a major pr push to tell us how successful it all was and what great benefits to the country have accrued. How proud we are blah...London will be grid-locked but not for VIPs. Londoners, who paid for this nightmare, will be glued to their Tvs whilst the 'lucky few' toast their great good fortune in Dom Perignon. 'Suck it up' should be the Olympic slogan.
- Bart, London, UK, 24/06/2011 11:48
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I cannot believe that in a city the size of London there werent any talented, intelligent people willing to sit on the organising committee. The appointment of a "has been" like Coe - whose only talent was that he was once able to run around a track - was a recipe for disaster and - unfortunately for tax payers who have been forced to pay for this fiasco - the disaster is happening even before the games begin.
- R.F.Yorke, Yorks,, 24/06/2011 11:43
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It's time that the ordinary man in the street, started to boycott such events. Show the likes of Coe that we will not be part of their scam, we will not be content with the scraps that fall from the table and that we ill not compete for these scarps like puppy dogs.
It may be a good idea that the ordinary man in the street, aplies this idea to voting too. Stay at home, let the politicians see, that we are fed up with them and refuse to take part in massaging their egos by voting for them.
As one radio caller said..."oh good grief, don't go out and vote, you only encourage them"
Time to vote with our feet and not buy such tickets.
- Cynical Ol Git, The UK, 24/06/2011 11:42
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If anyone still wants to see the Olympics in London I've got two front row tickets for the mens one hundred meters final for £20 each,that is if you dont mind me kids jumping about in front of the telly.
- Im alright jack, London, 24/06/2011 11:40
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It's probably easier to get elected as a local councillor and then get stuck into the freebies.
- ST, London, 24/06/2011 11:23
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A farce; I tried both times to get tickets to the Olympic stadium to see ANYTHING. Zero.
- Jules_london, london, 24/06/2011 11:11
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I worked on the first big construction project to start the build and after applying for 28 tickets in the frist round and not recieving any I was pi**ed. The problem was applying for all evening athletics and swimming events I figured I at least get one session. My bad, if i'd gone for the expensive ticket probably would have recieved a few. Well as the I awoke this morning at 5:30am and positioned myself in front of the PC. I really wanted to go to any of the remaining athletics events and the beach volleyball finals was available as well so I said that might be fun! by 6:03am I had all the tickets in the basket but it took another 15 to get them through, and i'm thrilled now!
- James, Old Street, 24/06/2011 10:50
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Ahahahaha. Why is anyone surprised? The best thing would have been if France had got it all those years ago. I said it then and I say it now, the Olympics for this country only benefits the very rich, a few 'commoners', some athletes and has-beens who are trying to make a name for themselves. It's a disgrace the way that this has been handled but hardly a surprise.
As for Mittal, of course money talks but as a friend pointed out, when he has paid in £10m of his own money, he should have a lot of tickets. The question is, should he been allowed to pay in this much money? The answer sadly is yes, otherwise we the tax payer would have been stumped for even more money. We could stop some tickets going to waste though by not giving them away to young children who will have no appreciation of the Games. This no doubt will infuriate some people but what 5 year old is really going to care how fast someone can run?
- S-M Hearmon, London, UK, 24/06/2011 10:43
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I applied for 17 pairs of tickets for myself and my sister who wanted to come over from Italy to see the Olympics, got just one pair so I am not allowed to take part in this fase of the tickets sales, which will probably mean nothing will be left for next fase.
My interest for it is completely gone and my sister said she won't bother for just one event, so I'll probably dispose of my tickets and go away on holiday. Very well done to Locog to put everyone off after charging all Londoners to pay for the event through increases in council tax
- Carlo Tono, London, UK, 24/06/2011 10:18
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@Sebastion Co-Profiteer - The 2012 London Olymipics have cost the British tax payer - £23,000,000,000.
That is approximately £500 for every man, woman and child.
- Hansel, London, 24/06/2011 09:59
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This is outrageous!! I've already paid for my ticket through taxes. Put my name down like millions of others to get nothing.
That guy Mittal got over 5000 tickets for the Olympics. First of all, how was he allowed to just get/ buy them when millions of UK residents can't. Why wasn't he in the "lottery"?
Oh yes, forgot, money gets you whoever you want. Oops, sorry whatever you want.
Secondly, this will create an anti-Olympic feeling especially when most Londoners will find it a nightmare to get around during the Games and to top it all we can't even get to the Games WE'VE PAID FOR!!!
- Karenf, London, 24/06/2011 09:43
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Thankyou COE, for a complete, and utter SHAMBLES.
- Brinley Acott Parkinson, London, 24/06/2011 09:42
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50% of tickets are for corporate sponsours. Logically your best chances of getting a ticket are trying to get on a corporate jolly.
- chris, london, 24/06/2011 09:41
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It took me 1.5 hours to login, apply for and pay. Although I had gone through the availability list to seek out tickets with good availability two out of my three choices were unavailable when I tried. I tried to ring the Helpline at one stage but put the phone down when I got a pre-recorded message from Sebastian! Wonder what the profits on the Helpline are?
- Michael de Ferrari, London, 24/06/2011 09:25
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Wow, who didn't see this one coming? It's almost like the BBC production Twenty Twelve was actually a dramatisation of actual events rather than a mockumentary. I can't wait to see the shambles that occurs next year, still, I suppose that it's only cost £10,000,000,000 as opposed to the £3,000,000,000 initially budgeted, mind you, there still time left to quadruple that figure.
- Sebastion Co-Profiteer, London, 24/06/2011 09:01
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