To be outraged on friends behalf re not being able to buy Olympic tickets

[Shinyshoes1]

Ok outraged is a bit ott but...
My friend from school has just posted on her FB status that she tried to by tickets at the Olympic park for the men's gymnastics as there were loads of empty seats and was til 'no'
She tried to buy them online outside the park but because her email had already been registered she couldn't buy them that way either.
So far from what I've seen on telly , there have been plenty of empty seats on both the gymnastics and the swimming events .
Surely if she wants to buy them and there are seats left she should be able to

You could have some sort of corral for people who are keen enough to queue outside, surely - then if the ticket holder doesn't show by a certain time, offer them to the people at the front of the queue for a few quid.

I really don't get corporate ticketing. Dh's company were given loads of schmooze tickets to a certain 80s boyband's Big Arena Comeback a few years ago.

Overwhelmingly, the 30-something middle management tier had minimal interest, & ended up passing their places on to the 40-something cleaners & a few office juniors who took their mums.

This occasioned a general ticking off from the CEO when a thoroughly riotous weekend ensued...

But really, the concert was a bloody sellout! LOTS of genuine fans wanted those tickets. If dh & his colleagues hadn't passed the tickets on, they'd almost certainly have ended up in the bar & the seats would have been empty. Totally pointless, & obviously a similar thing happens at sporting events. V odd.

Am I the only person who thinks there is a simple solution (at least to loads of empty prime seats) ? Similar to upgrades on airplanes - they could move people down from cheaper seats further out to fill up the empty ones in prime locations. That way you get a lot of happy people who get a better view than expected and you don't get the impression of masses of empty seats.

Then they could also sell (for a cheap price) a proportion of the less good seats on a first come first serve basis on the day. And still keep a few available for whoever was supposed to use them in the first place (assuming there is some reason why they should be able to turn up halfway through a session).

But I wonder how much control LOCOG would have over corporate / IOC ticket requirements? I think they are pretty much told how many tickets they have to allocate to the bigwigs, and once they have been allocated it is out of LOCOG's hands.

It's a disgrace and the whole system needs changing - hopefully there will be enough of an outcry that they can address it before Rio.

1 week before the end of term, our kids school (Suffolk) got given 4 sets of tickets, 4 people each set, they were for the veladrome (really surprised at those), swimming, football and gymnastics. After dicussion with the parents, the school decided to raffle them at £20 a ticket to raise funds, with the first out of the draw choosing which set first etc. I put in my £20, but sadly did not win, but the 4 families going (including my best mates) are really excited. I wonder how many other schools were offered them too late to do anything about it.
I have tried to buy some of the cheaper swimming tickets on line, but have been unsuccessful, and then you see the empty seats!.

I agree that it would be good practice to move the people in the cheaper seats, however, you couldn't really sell their tickets on because you don't know which of the corporate seats will not turn up until it happens. I would
hold a seat draw to upgrade the cheaper seats and then, if the corporate lot turn up late they have to sit in a vacant cheaper seat.

But a lot of times, I don't think it would be clear until the event started who was actually coming and then there probably wouldn't be time or it would be very disruptive to the competition to move a whole bunch of people, let in a whole bunch more people between races etc.

All of you sound much brainier than the organisers have been

I heard promises from Seb this morning on Radio 4 saying they were going to sort out the empty seat problem so raced on to the site in search of tickets (I've been trying to get hold of some in all ballots since last year but never bid for more than we can afford ? not much ? so never got any). The cheapest tickets I could find were £90 each!!! Don't see why people can't just turn up with their passports and fill empty seats for free. Surely better than having them empty.

The whole ticket selling thing has been a farce from start to finish, why didn't they just "sell" them in the first place instead of this ridiculous bidding system which cost a fortune. YADNBU
Now, the only way to help improve the situation is to put a very simple webpage up with all available tickets on it, and sell them cheaply, or to have a first come, first served system, where people who have already purchesed their tickets get priority seating on arrival, and then anyone else gets a seat further back either free, or very cheaply on production of ID

I expect it's a security issue.

There are £20 tickets for paralympic opening ceremony.

Might get them if I get paid....

You can buy tickets here:

Leave all the search fields as they are and just change which sport you're after. Tickets available but some v.expensive (closing ceremony, cheapest aboout £600)

There seem to be a lot of Swimming tickets left for Wednesday and Thursday this week, starting from £50 per ticket.

The swimming tickets are £295 - it shows all price brackets on the first page but when you search for tickets, only £295 comes up. For Weds and Thurs evening.

Swimming finals are always expensive. I'd love to go again but that's a bit steep and I dont have enough holiday from work to cover the time off to get there in time.

There are no tickets available for swimming - £295 tickets are stated on the website but none are available when you select those tickets whether you try Wed or Thurs.

The website is dreadful - you can't tell what is available without spending ages selecting sessions.

Ah, my mistake.

There were a handful of empty seats at Old Trafford yesterday, we were three rows from the pitch, 68,000 people, amazing atmosphere, 5 hrs of football, two sons age 5 & 10 and DH had a fab time and many player were hot, New Zealand especially! The Brazilian fans were brilliant!

The Eventing Cross Country was absolutely chocker today. They said 55,000 and I can believe it - was 10 deep in the most popular places but Greenwich was a fab venue and you could just about see whatever you wanted thanks to the natural ampitheatres or grandstands.

I agree the website is shockingly bad.

We have been trying, and failing, to get tickets for Gymnastics and diving, the two sports my kids do. We cant pay £295 per ticket for a family of 4!!

It makes £115 seem cheap - yet we cant afford that either.

I have been watching the news and they kept saying pupils and teachers are going to be given tickets, as well as others, to fill seats. But isn't everyone on holiday? How is that going to work? Can anyone explain?

I am fuming at the way this has all been handled. i love the olympics and it would be a dream for me to go, i was so excited when london won the bid. i applied for a few tickets (had to be able to afford it at the time) and didnt get any. now the events i wanted to go to and applied for tickets for nearly 2 years ago are available but when you go to select and pay it says they are unavailable! the whole organisation of the ticket selling has been a joke from start to finish grrrr.

with all the money they've spent in other things, how difficult could it really be to create a web site that only shows you available events? it is so frustrating to get to the point when you can add the tickets to the cart, only to get the message "tickets not found" at the end. I am fuming!

There are £20.12 tickets left for the Closing Ceremony plus Fri 10am tickets for the Athletics at £20 - i've just checked on the site!