Wimbledon Tennis

MiffedChris

If you purchase Centre Court tickets from Ticketmaster, which go on sale at 20:30 for the following day, please note that you can only purchase the first 2, despite Ticketmaster charging and allowing you to print tickets!

One of my party had to be escorted from the grounds yesterday and queue up for a Ground Pass and didn't get in until 16:30!

After the 3 tickets were scanned at Gate 5, we were marched to the Ticket Office, the Ticket Clerk advised that Wimbledon only allow any one person access to 2 tickets irrespective of what Ticketmaster says.

I should have received an e-mail from Ticketmaster advising of a refund . . . needless to say I didn't and haven't.

The seat which we weren't allowed to have remained empty ALL day!

We're not bothering to go again, as it ruined the day. In future will watch on the beeb instead!

:rolleyes:

Craileon

MiffedChris wrote: »

If you purchase Centre Court tickets from Ticketmaster, which go on sale at 20:30 for the following day, please note that you can only purchase the first 2, despite Ticketmaster charging and allowing you to print tickets!

One of my party had to be escorted from the grounds yesterday and queue up for a Ground Pass and didn't get in until 16:30!

After the 3 tickets were scanned at Gate 5, we were marched to the Ticket Office, the Ticket Clerk advised that Wimbledon only allow any one person access to 2 tickets irrespective of what Ticketmaster says.

I should have received an e-mail from Ticketmaster advising of a refund . . . needless to say I didn't and haven't.

The seat which we weren't allowed to have remained empty ALL day!

We're not bothering to go again, as it ruined the day. In future will watch on the beeb instead!

:rolleyes:

Can you elaborate for me as I have 2 tix for Court No1 for Monday but was thinking of buying centre court ones for the chance to see Rafa, My mum and I are going are you saying buying 2 tix are only letting one person in?

MiffedChris

Hello Craileon

If you have 2 tickets (presumably from a ballot), you will be fine, but I would suggest if you intend to purchase more (no more than 2!) from Ticketmaster, make sure the name and credit card they are issued to is different to the 2 you already have (and household address). Don't get someone else to buy them for you on their credit card though (unless they go with you), as you need to prove photo ID when your tickets are scanned at Gate 5 to confirm you are the person who purchased them, so these would also be refused!

They seem to have things sown up and with terror threats etc, I supposed they have to.

I purchased 3 (and was allowed to do so on Monday evening), but only the first 2 were allowed. Ticketmaster have now put clear notes at the time of purchasing (which weren't there on Monday evening so other people must have complained to them as well as me for this to happen).

If you would like to check with Wimbledon, their ticket office enquiry number is (0208) 971 2473 and is open from 09:00 - 17:00 Monday to Friday. NOTE: This is NOT a box office number for purchasing tickets!

To sum up, TWO tickets registered to one domestic postal address is fine. If I'd have got my sister to purchase the third ticket on Monday evening and pay on her credit card, the ticket would have been registered to her address and we wouldn't have had any problems on Tuesday!

Hope this helps and enjoy your day.

MiffedChris

Hello again, Craileon

Further to my last message, which I was unable to amend:

Alternatively, if you join the main queue in Car Park 10 at 06:00 for the best tickets with your family and/or friends, you can purchase as many tickets as you like. Remember that only CASH is accepted at the turnstiles though!

All the best.

honey06

were you able to buy tickets together or did you have to purchase them separately?

MiffedChris

Hello Honey06

With Ticketmaster, you search for seats before you buy.

I searched for "2" seats, without success. I then changed search to "1" and was successful and purchased. I then searched again for "1" and "rejected" until I got a seat close to the one I had purchased, though was in a different row (ZC115 and ZD115).

The third seat (ZD118) which I purchased and was refused was directly in front of ZC115 and is really annoying as the seat was empty all day!

If you have registered with Ticketmaster, it is possible to search for a seat and minimize the box (as you reserve for 2 minutes), then open another browsing box to search for another seat, then quickly pay for the first, as the fast purchase takes less than a minute depending on your connection speed. If you don't want to go on your own, this method ensures you don't have the final seat available.

As the tickets are much more expensive than the first 2 days, you might stand more chance of purchasing a pair, but try to access at exactly 20:30 for the best seats available.

Hope this helps.

NonGeographicalMan

The limitation by Ticketmaster and the AELTC to buying only two tickets and then asking for photo id at the gate at the ground (that proves you are the cardholder who purchased the tickets) has nothing at all to do with stopping terrorists (if they really cared about that they would make you go through the proper security checks in Wimbledon Park to which only buyers of Ground Passes are for some bizarre reason singled out to be subjected to) but everything to do with stopping ticket touts buying up loads of tickets on Ticketmaster and then reselling them at £1,000 each or whatever.

I was lucky enough to get two tickets for today's Womens final at Wimbledon for only £89 each (£84 + £5 booking fee) just after 8.30pm on Friday evening. When we got to Wimbledon it then became clear that large numbers of people sitting in rows ZA to ZF had also been able to buy tickets on the same basis. I wonder if this is because Wimbledon was not actually sure if these new rows (created by the centre court extensions connected with the new roof and extra corporate hospitality areas) would be available this year at the time the main ticket ballot was undertaken. Or perhaps it is just because they like having some genuine man/woman in the street type fans (rather than bloated and over fed corporate hospitality guests who don't even bother to stay on after the singles final for the Mens Doubles or Womens Doubles finals or genteel local tennis club members who are boringly organised enough to bother with the ballot months ahead) to yell enthusiastic support for the players from the back few rows.

When I checked on Ticketmaster at 8.30pm or just after on Friday night only the allocated in advance/print your own ticket type seats in rows ZA to ZF were available but later when I checked around 10pm annoyingly the "Allocated on Arrival" seats that are supposed to be genuine ticket returns were also now available. I half wondered if those might not be right at the front in row A or B if you were lucky although I imagine the chances of anyone returning tickets in those rows would be much, much smaller. The two ladies sitting next to us in Row ZC at the ground had got their seats for the Womens Final at 8.30am on Saturday morning so it appears a lot of seats for the Womens Final (perhaps up to 1,000) in Rows ZA to ZF were sold on Ticketmaster. However on checking at 2am tonight for Sunday no seats for the Mens Final are available. I don't think I would risk it anyway due to the bad weather forecast and the acute likelihood that boringly reliable Federer will win again (I don't want to see Borg's 5 wins in a row record beaten and so would like Nadal to win).

Oddly I see they charge more for the Mens Final tickets than the Womens Final tickets (£86 + £5 instead of £84 + £5) even though on Saturday there were three finals on Centre Court and on Sunday there are only two. Yet the women now get as much prize money as the men despite only playing for between two thirds and three fifths as long as the men.

I'm sure this Wimbledon ticket availability on Ticketmaster will become better known next year and subsequent years and the seats will then go within seconds instead of minutes or hours. It also seems odd how they don't sell any seats at the turnstiles for Thursday to Sunday for Centre Court and yet do allow this to happen on Ticketmaster. Personally I'm all in favour of this as I would never camp out on the pavement in Church Road or in Wimbledon Park overnight to get Finals day tickets but I am more than willing to be sitting patiently at my computer at 8.30pm in the evening.

MiffedChris

Are you saying that you didn't have bags etc checked when you entered the grounds? I've never gone on the last 4 days (as I can't justify the prices), so don't know how the security changes, but if they don't they're asking for trouble as any disruption to the Championships would be much more widely publicised at the closing stages.

As I understand it, the bag checks etc are as a result of a bomb scare which caused Centre Court to be cleared during the first Saturday in 1990. Perhaps I was wrong to link this in with the ticket checks, but I haven't objected to the security as these should lead to an uninterrupted day's entertainment (until it rains, of course!).

For those who aren't aware, Federer equalled Borg's record last year. All he can do now is to try and beat Sampras and Renshaw's records of holding 7 Gentlemen's Singles titles, as it is unlikely he'll be able to win the title for the next 6 years!

Well done Nadal.

Ahh well, that's it for another year . . .

Lemmy_Caution

Just to think that in a few short years time we will be saying things like 'I don't want Nadal to win again. It's so boring!' Was Borg more a more interesting player than Federer? Don't answer that question I feel we are(O.K. I am) straying out of this forum's territory.

NonGeographicalMan

MiffedChris wrote: »

Are you saying that you didn't have bags etc checked when you entered the grounds? I've never gone on the last 4 days (as I can't justify the prices), so don't know how the security changes, but if they don't they're asking for trouble as any disruption to the Championships would be much more widely publicised at the closing stages.

What I am saying is that if you only buy a Ground Pass on the day you have to go through the full airport style security check in Wimbledon Park. This consists of your bag going through an airport style bag scanner and you also having to go through a metal detector and be body searched if the metal detector goes off for any reason (even a belt buckle was enough at some of the metal detectors you had to pass through this year).

But if you have a Centre, No1 or No2 court ticket either won in the ballot or bought on Ticketmaster you then bypass these arrangements in Wimbledon Park and go in through one of the gates in Church Road. The staff at these gates only do a perfunctory manual bag check and because they are having to check every single bag manually (rather than only the odd one pulled off a bag scanner line as being still suspicious) they are not making people get every single item out or checking at all thoroughly. Also anything could be concealed on your body as you are not frisked and do not have to go through a metal detector.

However those queuing for centre court tickets overnight in Wimbledon Park by camping there (the guys who formerly camped out on the pavement in Church Road) do have to go through the Wimbledon Park bag scanner and metal scanner and get their Centre, No or No2 court tickets purely by virtue of being first in line in the queue for on the day tickets.

In other words Wimbeldon's idiotic security management assumes that a genuine terrorist won't apply for tickets in the ballot, won't be an official of the club or an umpire etc, won't buy them off ticketmaster or won't buy them off Ebay (where Debenture tickets are openly being resold as their terms and conditions allow them to be resold). This is a yawning hole in their security. If they believe the bag scanner and metal detector is necessary at all then it is necessary for everyone with a ticket of whatever kind.

As I understand it, the bag checks etc are as a result of a bomb scare which caused Centre Court to be cleared during the first Saturday in 1990.

The high level security checks with body metal detectors and bag scanners in Wimbledon Park only started last year or the year before as a reaction to the 7/7 tube bombers. But obviously Wimbledon is a big target as a bomb on a full up Centre Court would cause massive carnage and the bomber doesn't even have to commit suicide. They can simply leave their bag under their seat and then leave Wimbledon through the main gate before it goes off. The manual bag checks are so perfunctory for those with tickets obtained beforehand that any bag with a false bottom could easily conceal a device.

Perhaps I was wrong to link this in with the ticket checks, but I haven't objected to the security as these should lead to an uninterrupted day's entertainment (until it rains, of course!).

If you naively assume all security measures instituted by the authorities are actually effective rather than merely being window dressing to give the appearance of extra security (as they often are) then you are in for a big shock.

For those who aren't aware, Federer equalled Borg's record last year.

Yes but he also failed to exceed Borg's record yesterday and thus make himself the only man since Wimbledon became a serious world class tennis tournament (around 1920) to win more than 5 singles in a row. That was why Borg was there again to watch. Borg can now return to Sweden a happy man and/or invite Federer to lunch to compare notes on what it is like to have one's winning run cut off by a young upstart.

All he can do now is to try and beat Sampras and Renshaw's records of holding 7 Gentlemen's Singles titles, as it is unlikely he'll be able to win the title for the next 6 years!

W.C Renshaw won the Mens Singles 6 times in a row between 1881 and 1886 and and then once more in 1889. So in other words 7 times in total like Sampras but with the 6 times in a row making his run superior to Borg and Federer. H.L. Doherty also won the Mens Singles 5 times in a row between 1902 and 1906. So in other words if Federer could have carried on his unbroken run and won 7 mens singles in a row (the same number as Sampras but unbroken) or better still 8 in a row (more mens singles titles at Wimbledon than anyone else has ever achieved) then he would have been definitively the all time best. But now he can only hope to equal Sampras's and W.C. Renshaw's total tally of 7 mens singles or better still get 8 mens singles in total to achieve any kind of all time record. He can never now equal or exceed W.C. Renshaw's 6 singles titles in a row. Obviously everyone realises that the competition to win Wimbledon was not exactly as tough as it is to today until around the start of the 1920s. See http://aeltc.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/history/rolls/menroll.html

Well done Nadal.

Ahh well, that's it for another year . . .

Yes a stunning achievement by Nadal as almost no one else could have kept it together to defeat Federer after such a strong come back on Federer's part and after they had failed to take advantage of two Championship Points so much earlier on in the match.

Regarding the price of the tickets I don't see why you think you can't afford the face value of the ticket on the last four days if you can get one through Ticketmaster etc. The price is only 30% or so higher than for Centre Court on the Wednesday in the second week. Hardly a lot to see the Womens or Mens Final. The steep increase in ticket prices at Wimbledon has actually been the price of ground admission and especially after 5pm ground admission. Ground admission only cost £5 for the full day after Tuesday in the second week 15 years ago. Now it is £20. Also ground admission after 5pm on the final Sunday used to be £1 15 years ago and now it is £5. Also resale tickets for Centre, No1 and No2 courts have gone up from only £1 each to £5 each in the space of just four or five years........

madkid88

How do i register for next years tickets guys, want to desperately go.