'Olympics ticketing system – a psychic booking process that's anti-consumer' blog

Stochasticity

They can also only deliver tickets (in early 2012), if you're successful, to the exact same address as your billing address (now).

Which makes it impossible for anyone who can't be entirely certain that they'll be living at the exact same address in a year's time to order tickets.

Crazy.

BillTrac

I think only the UK could come up with such a cack handed way of selling tickets.

Basically should have been first come first served, with the ticket touts being stung exactly as stated on the Olympic site. OK, some people would be disappointed , but I expect lots will anyway.

Biggest problem is the corporate tickets being held back. It will be exactly like it it at half time in any existing sporting event/concert whatever. Where the free loaders can't even be a****d to pretend they are interested in the event they were given free tickets for. Too busy stuffing their huge guts with free food and drink.
Meanwhile, the people who indirectly pay for this get screwed again

Onyourcase

jjackson42 wrote: »

I think the answer is to do what I did:

Order the seats you want for the events you want to attend.

Dont order more tickets than you can afford to pay for!

Simples!!!!

JJ - waiting to see what I get - and happy with, hopefully, ANY of the three sessionls I've requested.

We'd love to have been able to go but the ticket prices plus the train travel meant it was too expensive.
You see Martin, we are cutting back on unnecessary expenditure and dealing with our credit card debts like you said.
I'm guessing the cheaper tickets mean you'll also need to purchase binoculars?

mgmidget66

BillTrac wrote: »

I think only the UK could come up with such a cack handed way of selling tickets.

Basically should have been first come first served, with the ticket touts being stung exactly as stated on the Olympic site. OK, some people would be disappointed , but I expect lots will anyway.

You're having a laugh, right? Remember the angst caused by the Take That concert? Imagine that on a *MUCH* bigger scale. On a scale it's hard to imagine in fact! It would have been utter chaos and the organisers would have faced even more criticism than they are getting now! This isn't a 2 hour music concert over 2 nights we're talking about here but a 3 weeks of sport across lots of venues inside (and outside) London. The process was designed so that people could take their time and see what it had to offer.

To the people commenting about travel costs, can I just repeat again what I have said? Your ticket to an Olympic/Paralympic session will include FREE travel in London. As you have a year's notice of what sessions you will be lucky enough to go to you have plenty of time to buy cheaper advance rail fairs. As the Oyster area now extends almost out to the M25 in some places (e.g., Watford) you can stay further out of London and reduce costs there too.

Cheaper tickets will mean you're further from the action but at a lot of venues you will still have a superb view. Modern sports stadia are designed with sightlines in mind.

Lastly, I assume that everyone who will be upset at missing out on Oympic tickets will therefore be wanting Paralympic tickets? I hope you do, as they are truely inspiring events (and will probably be cheaper and easier to get hold of!)

mynameisclare

Stochasticity wrote: »

They can also only deliver tickets (in early 2012), if you're successful, to the exact same address as your billing address (now).

Which makes it impossible for anyone who can't be entirely certain that they'll be living at the exact same address in a year's time to order tickets.

Crazy.

I don't think that's quite true. They've hidden it away quite well, but it does say on the website "If you need to update your address, please contact the London 2012 Ticketing team."

markbernstein

Couldn't really agree more with Martin's comments on the blog. I don't care all that much about the Games but went to the site out of curiosity, and was simply astonished by the almost total lack of "customer friendliness" of the whole procedure (the only good point being that one can extend one's choice of seating category for some events, but not for all) and why anyone would declare to be "proud" of accepting VISA cards only.
Perhaps I missed it, but the press seems to have been quite silent on this. Imagine what certain media would have written if, say, the Games were held in Paris and the same thing went on there.
Can we take bets that the re-sale of unwanted tickets will (a) only be possible for events that have sold out and where the organisers therefore can't sell them themselves and (b) will have a hefty handling fee attached?

mo786uk

Disaster waiting to happen for some people if and when they find out they have overstretched themselves by winnign too may tickets.

I am willing to bet my life someone pops up on the news in the future saying how they have had huge amoutns of money taken out of their accounts and cannot afford it and didnt expect to win so many tickets.

MSE_Martin

mo786uk wrote: »

Disaster waiting to happen for some people if and when they find out they have overstretched themselves by winnign too may tickets.

I am willing to bet my life someone pops up on the news in the future saying how they have had huge amoutns of money taken out of their accounts and cannot afford it and didnt expect to win so many tickets.

I think you're almost certainly right

mgmidget66

mo786uk wrote: »

Disaster waiting to happen for some people if and when they find out they have overstretched themselves by winnign too may tickets.

I am willing to bet my life someone pops up on the news in the future saying how they have had huge amoutns of money taken out of their accounts and cannot afford it and didnt expect to win so many tickets.

...and it will be their own fault (sorry to sound uncharitable). If they couldn't afford the potential full amount they why did they expose themselves to the risk? The system may or may not be flawed, I happen to think it's the least worst way of distributing millions of tickets, but it's not exactly like London 2012 have been hiding this in the small print, they have been pretty up front about it all. Apply for the tickets and if you win you pay.

As I said above Martin, you always implore people to only buy what they can afford and think hard about purchases, why is this any different?

mgmidget66

markbernstein wrote: »

Can we take bets that the re-sale of unwanted tickets will (a) only be possible for events that have sold out and where the organisers therefore can't sell them themselves and (b) will have a hefty handling fee attached?

The re-sale will be driven by the people who have the tickets but don't want them. This could be for sold out events or for sessions where hardly any tickets have been sold. The organisers won't have any control over this. Also it won't be in their interest to add a high fee, especially for events which haven't sold out (or people won't buy them from the exchange but from the box-office leaving empty seats which they don't want!).

This whole ticketing thing boils down to the fact that if you get the tickets you want you'll think it's a good system, if you miss out you'll think it's a farce. The organisers just can't win especially against all the armchair ticketing system experts on this forum!