OT Olympic Tickets

[ARWadsworth]

Can she get some tickets for the womens volleyball?

[Andy Champ]

I think that tells us everything we could possibly want to know about your interest in sport. Purely aesthetic? :)

Andy

[ARWadsworth]

Not everything!

I really admire all the olympic athletes as I could never do what they do. My sport as a kid was football and I really enjoyed it and still do. We were not allowed to play rugby at my school but I still like to watch Wakefield Trinity (I hate their new name) when I get the chance.

The olympics are a chance to watch proper athletes and not the overpaid footballers that I usually watch. I wish all the GB team good luck and I want them to win more medals than other countries.

Too many people slag this country off instead of backing it. The London Olympics should be our show piece and not a slagging off event.

I suppose that being proud of ths country and the fact that we will organise a successful 2012 Olympics will put me in a minority on this newsgroup.

[Tim Streater]

Not necessarily. I applaud your general sentiments, but feel that too much of what surrounds the Olympics and other major events has just become hype and commercial. This nonsense of the Olympic flame is one example, with only 25% of the runners being genuine and the rest being nominated by the sponsors, is one thing; the sponsors having a commercial lock on advertising is another [1]; the egregious reserving of bits of road so that pompous IOC officials can be chauffeured around is yet another.

Let's get back to a simple, more amateur approach to it.

I agree about the overpaid footballers, but that's a result of too much commercialism in that sport too. There's the premiership - and the rest. Not like the old days.

Not allowed to play rugby, eh? At my school, we were forced to!

[1] People on uk.legal were whinging about this in particular.

[Thumper]

Some bloke has apparently applied for £36,000 worth on the assumption there would be a lot of competition for them and he wouldn't get many.

MBQ

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I've only applied for £135 worth of tickets. Still waiting for money to be taken. I decided to go for the venue that was easiest for me to get to. So that's a fast train to London Charing Cross, and from there a few minutes walk to Horse Guards Parade to watch some Beach Volleyball.

[tim....]

According to today's press release:

1.8 million people made applications for 20 million tickets.

Given that that's potentially from the whole of Europe am I alone in thinking, that's a very small number?

1.8M people is about 1% of the sensible catchments area and 20 million total applications is 11 per person. If we assume (perhaps wrongly) that most people are going of be wanting one ticket for each family member they will be asking for 4 of the same. This means that most people have only applied for tickets for one or two sessions.

So much for the hype of people applying for dozens of events.

(Though none of the above should be taken to suggest that I think the whole thing a failure, I'm sure that they will have no trouble selling spare tickets to people disenfranchised by the current process).

tim

[Thumper]

On this mornings BBC Breakfast they said 1m had applied for tickets to see the 100m final.

[dennis]

The really stupid thing is the organisers used that fact to claim everyone is interested in the olympics. If they had 60 million people apply then it might be true but a mere 2% of the population at best?

[ARWadsworth]

If you are basing that 2% on a 60m population then should also ignore the

10% that are too young to buy tickets:-)

[Thumper]

All the organisers needed is the number of tickets applied for to be more than the number available, for them to call it an overwhelming success. They won't care what percentage of the entire population it was.

[The Natural Philosopher]

What are Olympricks?

[geoff]

World record ones

[The Natural Philosopher]

I think the world record is stuck in a groove.

That's probably to do with the pricks. It needs a new needle.

[Thumper]

Can't believe what was on BBC local news tonight. While us Brits are having to wait to see if we win the lottery for tickets, the Germans can log on to the website dertour.com and buy all the tickets they want at face value on a first come first served basis.

[tim....]

And so can you. They are not allowed to refuse to sell tickets to nationals of any EU country.

(Actually they, and you, can't buy all the tickets that they want. There is no availability for Athletics, Swimming, Cycling or Ceremonies. Precisely the events that are likely to have sold out through the ballot.)

tim

[Thumper]

We just get to know about it after we've used the official ticket sales website.

That's because they have bought all the tickets. I expect to see lots of beach towels on the seats of the Olympic Stadium before breakfast each day.

[Thumper]

Didn't get any tickets.

[tim....]

What did you ask for?

tim

[Owain]

I think it's more likely that people who are interested in the Olympics and can afford travel/accommodation will make a holiday of it and see more events. 11 per person is 5 events if they go as a couple. I don't think many would bother going for just one event, not even Adam and the women's volleyball.

Owain

[Thumper]

5 tickets for Beach Volleyball at Horse Guards. Was going to be the family day out at the Olympics. And 2 tickets for me and nephew for football quarter final match at Wembley.