'Is the Olympics sponsored by Wonga.com?' blog discussion

Former_MSE_Helen · 16 May 2011 at 10:57AM

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Is the Olympics sponsored by Wonga.com?" Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

nomoneytoday · 16 May 2011 at 11:33AM

IMHO maybe it should be sponsored by a payday lender?
A 2 week event, and the costs to borrow are much higher after completion

oakhouse13 · 16 May 2011 at 11:54AM

Some events are free and have not been ticketed

http://www.london2012.com/press/media-releases/2011/03/london-2012-announces-cycling-time-trial-route.php

opaque · 16 May 2011 at 12:48PM

If you don't have the money you shouldn't have applied for the tickets. Yes you might not get what you want to see but then where does it say you are entitled to them?

As with anything else in life (and especially why we come to MSE) you make judgements on what is actually possible. Might mean you have to scrimp and save or go without but you can't throw yourself into ordering potentially thousands of pounds worth of tickets without having to take responsibility for doing do.

jazmad · 16 May 2011 at 12:58PM

All of your ideas are sensible for the majority, but unfortunately are ruined by the minority. Here are a few issues:
- if they told people what tickets they had 'won' before taking the money, some would be disappointed and intentionally not have the money in their account to pay (or even close down their accounts) causing confusion for the organisers or probably delays and bad headlines.
- the problem of tying up the money can be relatively easily avoided by paying on credit card. Also, at current interest rates tying up £100 for a month costs at most 50p. If you can afford to spend £100 on tickets, you can afford to spend £100.50 (think of it as a booking fee if you like!)
- yes, it is annoying that you have to use Visa but they will pay a lot to sponsor the games and if they didn't have exclusivity, the tickets would cost more. In the same way you won't be able to buy pepsi in the stadium as Coke are the sponsors!!

If they had done the tickets on a first-come, first-served basis lots of people would have been disappointed. Organising a ballot which doesn't commit you to buying the tickets wouldn't work, as people would have applied for everything and then dropped out. Whilst the process isn't perfect, I think it strikes a good balance between the needs of the organisers and the needs of the buyers.

Having said all that, I agree they should have indicated what seating the price categories related to (although I imagine this is because it will depend on how many people have applied for tickets in each category)

ViolaLass · 16 May 2011 at 3:46PM

opaque wrote: »

If you don't have the money you shouldn't have applied for the tickets. Yes you might not get what you want to see but then where does it say you are entitled to them?

So it's right that opportunity to attend any events at all has been linked to disposable income? Someone who can afford to have £1000 sitting in their account not being used for a month or more can afford to spread their bets and not mind if they can't sell tickets back until next year. They thereby have a much better chance of getting any tickets at all. If you can't afford to have that amount of money sitting around, sure, you bid for fewer tickets, as is sensible - and have less chance of attending anything at all. That's hardly fair.

opaque · 16 May 2011 at 3:55PM

>So it's right that opportunity to attend any events at all has been linked to disposable income? <

Isn't that the case with everything? Why should the Olympics be any different?
And there is no guarantee that anybody will get the tickets they want if they are oversubscribed anyway, whether you'd put in for 1 £20 ticket or 20 at £95. So the likelyhood of you getting a ticket is a lucky dip anyway.

It's up to you to decide what 'disposable' income you are using for this. I don't know about other people but I saved up specifically to have the money for what I wanted to apply for. Why shouldn't anyone else that wants to go do the same? It's not a perfect system by any stretch but if you want the chance of tickets you had to agree to it. There is nothing saying you have the right to go or anything saying it's ok if you're poor you can come in anyway nevermind.

Fair? Who said anything about fair? If you want something you have to pay for it. Just because it's the Olympics people seem to think that they have the right to what they want.

MSE_Martin · 16 May 2011 at 4:00PM

opaque wrote: »

>So it's right that opportunity to attend any events at all has been linked to disposable income? <

Isn't that the case with everything? Why should the Olympics be any different?
And there is no guarantee that anybody will get the tickets they want if they are oversubscribed anyway, whether you'd put in for 1 £20 ticket or 20 at £95. So the likelyhood of you getting a ticket is a lucky dip anyway.

It's up to you to decide what 'disposable' income you are using for this. I don't know about other people but I saved up specifically to have the money for what I wanted to apply for. Why shouldn't anyone else that wants to go do the same? It's not a perfect system by any stretch but if you want the chance of tickets you had to agree to it. There is nothing saying you have the right to go or anything saying it's ok if you're poor you can come in anyway nevermind.

Fair? Who said anything about fair? If you want something you have to pay for it. Just because it's the Olympics people seem to think that they have the right to what they want.

The Olympics should be different, because its a huge national event funded by taxpayer money. THe issue here isn't

Johnny Rich can afford £1,000 of tickets, Peter Poorer £200. That is the nature of disequalities of income.

The issue is.

Johnny Rich wants £300 of tickets (2 events)
Peter Poorer wants £300 of tickets (2 events)

Johnny Rich bids for £1,000 of tickets over a good spread, giving himself a nice chance, because while he doesn't really want more - he can sell them to mates and has no cash flow issues with it.

Peter Poorer cannot do that, and as such can only risk the 2 events (unless he risks hurting his finances).

So Johnny being richer has a much greater chance of filling his allocation that Peter. Thus we've not just priced Peter out, we've reduced his odds due to lower income.

That is not the Olympic spirit in my book.

ViolaLass · 16 May 2011 at 4:42PM

Thank you, Martin, that was exactly what I was trying to say. I think it's very wrong. It's not about not wanting to pay for tickets, but about wanting the same odds as anyone else.

opaque · 16 May 2011 at 4:43PM

But there you have shown that it is the same as any other event you might want tickets to. Peter is priced out because he doesn't want to or isn't able to spend more money. That is life.

A lot of the basic tenents of the Olympic spirit died out years ago when it started costing hundred of millions and then billions to host it.
It is a business now straight and simple, and it has to be to pay for it, even the government money isn't enough by a long stretch, which is why the sponsors get such a big chunk.

There are lots of things funded by taxpayer money that people get no benefit from. The difference with the Olympics is that there will be stadiums, housing, transport links and other amenities that will still be there afterwards that show an element of value for money. And for those people who get tickets they get to see the Olympics in the flesh whilst everyone else gets to see it on the BBC in HD for the price of their license fee.

Real Olympic spirit could be you say you want to go and you get randomly allocated tickets to random events.

VT82 · 16 May 2011 at 6:45PM

opaque wrote: »

But there you have shown that it is the same as any other event you might want tickets to. Peter is priced out because he doesn't want to or isn't able to spend more money. That is life.

You appear to still be misunderstanding (or choosing to ignore) Martin's point. Both people can afford the same tickets - it is the system that makes it easier for the wealthy to secure them, not the prices themselves.

For the Take That concert tickets, someone's wealth wasn't a factor in whether or not they were more likely to get tickets. It was down to their patience (geddit?), and their ability to be on the right website at the right time.

Martin has suggested how they could have avoided the Take That tickets problem, without going to the other extreme of unfairness they have ended up with. The system they have used could have been worse, but it also could have been fairer to the less well-off. It is obviously too late to have it changed this time, but a pithy 'That is life' is defeatist. If everyone had that attitude, we'd have no consumer rights at all.

'Is the Olympics sponsored by Wonga.com?' blog discussion

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