Bradley Wiggins comments on the Olympic ticket allocation.

rick_chasey

Pross wrote:

For all the complaints about the system I haven't heard anyone come up with a better alternative.

I have always advocated the policy adopted by Wimbledon (or as I understand it anyway), where small tennis clubs get given a significant proportion of tickets to give away in a raffle to members. That way you get enthusiasts who both understand and appreciate the sport.

Give those who actually do and love the sports first preference.

Pross

It's certainly an option but one of the aims of the Games is to encourage people into sport and doing that could lead to a bit of a clique for those already involved in Olympic sports. I do agree that a percentage should have been available in that sort of format though although from what Rich says it may well be that they were in some sports at least so maybe one for BC to answer.

iainf72

Rick Chasey wrote:

Give those who actually do and love the sports first preference.

Surely it's better to give the tickets to someone who's not a fan, but has an interest, however slight in the sport. A big event might make them an "fan" and make the sport more popular.

I couldn't give a monkeys about the olympics. Huge drain on resources that will never pay for itself.

LeicesterLad

iainf72 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Give those who actually do and love the sports first preference.

Surely it's better to give the tickets to someone who's not a fan, but has an interest, however slight in the sport. A big event might make them an "fan" and make the sport more popular.

I couldn't give a monkeys about the olympics. Huge drain on resources that will never pay for itself.

I'm with Iain, frankly the Olympics is sh*t, a waste of money, boring, sh*t, a waste of money, and Boring. (IMO)

rick_chasey

Anyone who claims the olympics is anything but massive entertainment is wide of the mark.

I remember listening to some guardian podcast - where they were saying the stats show hosting the olympics barely impacts participation, and that it's main effect beyond having a big self congratulatory party (and a bloody enjoyable one at that) is that it gets much needed cash into existing sports.

I'm all for it. Without stuff like this, the world would be a duller place.

boneyjoe

OK, here's a thought. If you didn't get tickets for your chosen sport (like me), why not put the money towards attending the next national or regional champs, or international event that takes place in the UK? The money then goes direct to your sport, and I'll bet you'll still have a great time, and probably get much better value than the Olympic tickets will offer. Can't believe I almost spent £400 this morning on tickets to synchronised swimming and beach volleyball! Thankfully saw some sense before it was too late!

CyclingBantam

I see what people are saying about nobody ever being happy and to a large extent I fully agree, however, I do feel that they way it has been done, it has simply encouraged people to bid for tickets they didn't really want. They have devised the system, in my opinion, to ensure all tickets are sold. Now that is fair enough I guess but hardly going with the Olympic spirit.

I think that a number, even if it wasn't that great, should have been given to each sport its self to distribute, then the remaining tickets should have been a first come first served basis, maybe split over a couple of releases.

Simply making people bid for tickets but then have no idea what they have got for month's before randomly taking an amount of money out of their accounts is stupid. It ensured people would bid for extra as they knew they wouldn't get everything.

CyclingBantam

LeicesterLad wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Give those who actually do and love the sports first preference.

Surely it's better to give the tickets to someone who's not a fan, but has an interest, however slight in the sport. A big event might make them an "fan" and make the sport more popular.

I couldn't give a monkeys about the olympics. Huge drain on resources that will never pay for itself.

I'm with Iain, frankly the Olympics is sh*t, a waste of money, boring, sh*t, a waste of money, and Boring. (IMO)

So are you for or against the Olympics?

shm_uk

boneyjoe wrote:

OK, here's a thought. If you didn't get tickets for your chosen sport (like me), why not put the money towards attending the next national or regional champs, or international event that takes place in the UK? The money then goes direct to your sport, and I'll bet you'll still have a great time, and probably get much better value than the Olympic tickets will offer. Can't believe I almost spent £400 this morning on tickets to synchronised swimming and beach volleyball! Thankfully saw some sense before it was too late!

I think what boneyjoe is saying is; "If you didn't get tickets for your chosen sport, grow up, stop moaning about it, & move on"

shm_uk

CyclingBantam wrote:

LeicesterLad wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Give those who actually do and love the sports first preference.

Surely it's better to give the tickets to someone who's not a fan, but has an interest, however slight in the sport. A big event might make them an "fan" and make the sport more popular.

I couldn't give a monkeys about the olympics. Huge drain on resources that will never pay for itself.

I'm with Iain, frankly the Olympics is sh*t, a waste of money, boring, sh*t, a waste of money, and Boring. (IMO)

So are you for or against the Olympics?

Yeh, stop sitting on the fence and commit. I can't stand ambivolence.

Pross

First come, first served just doesn't work with such large scale sales and you would end up where those who were able to get online and connect to the site would still buy a load of tickets they didn't particularly want. A ballot with a limit on how many tickets you could apply for may have been a bit fairer and stop people applying for things they weren't that keen on.

My biggest gripe is that you had to use a Visa card to pay, it meant I had to pay out of my current account without knowing when the money would go out as I only had a Mastercard credit card. That seems to be taking sponsorship too far. I also think charging £6 delivery for 4 tickets is a bit of a rip off!

PBo

Sheer maths means lots of people were going to be disappointed, and I was one of them. I'm not bitter though, as I don't think there is an ideal solution.

Probably the one constructive suggestion I've seen in amongst all the massive whingeing is that once you won one set of tickets, you couldn't win more until everyone had had a shot at at least one set.

But even then, loads of people probably bid for cheap tickets on a small number of oversubscribed events and would still have missed out - so what do you do?

CyclingBantam

Pross wrote:

First come, first served just doesn't work with such large scale sales and you would end up where those who were able to get online and connect to the site would still buy a load of tickets they didn't particularly want. A ballot with a limit on how many tickets you could apply for may have been a bit fairer and stop people applying for things they weren't that keen on.

My biggest gripe is that you had to use a Visa card to pay, it meant I had to pay out of my current account without knowing when the money would go out as I only had a Mastercard credit card. That seems to be taking sponsorship too far. I also think charging £6 delivery for 4 tickets is a bit of a rip off!

Yeah, that is a fair point about the limit to how many tickets you can have. The whole Visa thing was the last straw for me. I just had no interest in it really as any enjoyment or 'romance' had gone for me and it was simply a desperate attempt to get as much money as possible from people. Maybe I'm very naive and I did appreciate it wouldn't be cheap but I just felt they went way, way too far. I would have far more respect if they just said that the aim was to generate a lot of the money through ticket sales as opposed to trying to make out they are very affordable.

CyclingBantam

PBo wrote:

Sheer maths means lots of people were going to be disappointed, and I was one of them. I'm not bitter though, as I don't think there is an ideal solution.

Probably the one constructive suggestion I've seen in amongst all the massive whingeing is that once you won one set of tickets, you couldn't win more until everyone had had a shot at at least one set.

But even then, loads of people probably bid for cheap tickets on a small number of oversubscribed events and would still have missed out - so what do you do?

You are right, they couldn't really win however, I think there could have been a lot more thought put in to it. I don't see too many people moaning they didn't get a ticket, it seems to be the annoyance with the flawed process meaning the more cash you can 'risk' the more chance of tickets you have.

It was a tough job though.

LeicesterLad

shm_uk wrote:

CyclingBantam wrote:

LeicesterLad wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Give those who actually do and love the sports first preference.

Surely it's better to give the tickets to someone who's not a fan, but has an interest, however slight in the sport. A big event might make them an "fan" and make the sport more popular.

I couldn't give a monkeys about the olympics. Huge drain on resources that will never pay for itself.

I'm with Iain, frankly the Olympics is sh*t, a waste of money, boring, sh*t, a waste of money, and Boring. (IMO)

So are you for or against the Olympics?

Yeh, stop sitting on the fence and commit. I can't stand ambivolence.

And to settle it, im neither for nor against. Just think its turd.

Cleat Eastwood

They could have done what they with european/important games in footy, that is if you've attended a prior event you keep your ticket stub to get a concession or a better than evens chance of getting a ticket. So those who went to any of the reveolutions etc would have had a better shout.

Either way an arch tory lets his mates pocket the tickets, did anyone really expect anything else.

Pross

CyclingBantam wrote:

I don't see too many people moaning they didn't get a ticket, it seems to be the annoyance with the flawed process meaning the more cash you can 'risk' the more chance of tickets you have.

It was a tough job though.

I think it was more a case of the sports you opted to apply for rather than the cost risk you could take. I bid for £60 odd worth of tickets and got them. I could have bid for every track cycling final and all the big athletic finals and risked a bill of thousands but I suspect I would have had less chance of getting a ticket. I'm not usually lucky but it looks like this has turned so I'm off to buy a Euro Millions ticket tonight

colint

Bradley having a whinge, well I never !

I'm sick of hearing people complain about not getting tickets, it was always going to be massively oversubscribed so most people are going to lose out, not all of them choose to whinge about it though.

Tickets for sponsors etc are essential, because without them the event wouldn't be in London.

Monty Dog

Surely tickets should be allocated in proportion to the level of contribution - as the GB taxpayer has paid the biggest contribution, then surely they should have received the biggest allocation? Why the hell should the likes of Coca Cola or Macdonalds get a bigger share when they're going to get a huge amount of publicity - which is what they paid for in the first place, not to smooze their guests.

colint

They did. 8% went to sponsors, 75% to the public

CyclingBantam

Colint got the remaining 17%. That is why he is so positive!!

Pross

colint wrote:

They did. 8% went to sponsors, 75% to the public

Don't go quoting facts on an internet forum :shock:

StageWinner

Personally don;t care who gets tickets - fan or not. As long as they all get sold!


It's way better watching most of the sports on tv anyway

Ben6899

I am still yet to email the Olympics ticketing people; thanking them for the "exclusive" opportunity to apply for second rate tickets today [as long as I had nothing better to do at 6am].

Cheeky wankers.

Anonymous

Every major(ish) event in Olympic sports in 2009 & 2010 should have given unique passcodes entitling the holder to get 1 ticket for that sport at the Olympics.

That would have got tickets to genuine fans, boosted attendances for 2 years, got more money into sports, driven interest in said sports, got athletes used to performing in front of big crowds.

Unfortunately the only requirement for LOCOG was a system tha sold a lot of tickets and could be defended as "fair", so this would've been too much like hard work.

I suspect 90% of velodrome attendees will be expecting a GB medal sweep - deluded!

Le Commentateur

London 2012 Olympics: Chris Hoy's father-in-law confuses garden furniture with velodrome tickets

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... ckets.html

PBo

Le Commentateur wrote:

London 2012 Olympics: Chris Hoy's father-in-law confuses garden furniture with velodrome tickets

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... ckets.html

ha, ha! you couldn't make it up!!

estampida

its a massive scam

billions spent, east london reworked so its easyier on the eye, and mostly corperate tix......

And if you missed tix check the euro countries web site's for tix, I have friends that bought last day athletic tix from holland (remember - common market)

and most europeans wont want to spend 14 days in london emptying their pockets, or looking a pearly kings..

calvjones

iainf72 wrote:

oscarbudgie wrote:

There's always enough tickets for so -called VIPs, sponsors and all their families, politicians and hangers on though. The prawn sandwich brigade. Same reek of elitism and privelege that made people turn away from the Millenium Celebrations. Coe & co are happy to take our money to build this sh!t but fukc you to anyone out of their circle who wants to go. My daughter is at school in a neighbouring borough to Stratford and even she won't get a ticket.

I'm amazed people seem surprised at the corruption and neopotism in the IOC. If you look at how the organisation runs, none of this should be a surprise. Cadel Evans had some interesting comments on how the IOC behave in his book.

For all his whining, Cadel seems a bright and principled lad off and on the bike

chrisday

Made me chuckle, and vaguely on topic:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/spo ... 106273998/