Are you celebrating winning the lottery today? Were you one of the lucky ones granted tickets for the Olympics?
I'm not and I'm gutted.
I've been excited about London 2012 for ages. I applied for tickets in the ballot. I carefully chose the events I wanted to attend and applied for the highest banding I could afford. I also threw my hat in for the big two, then men's 100m final and the opening ceremony. If I'd been successful in every event I applied for, the tickets would have cost £700.
£700 is a lot of money. We haven't got £700 to throw around, but I so desperately wanted to attend the Olympics in London. I dared not apply for any more tickets than this, just in case I won them all.
I wish now I'd applied for more.
This morning I saw the pending transactions on my Visa bill were £400. I started jumping up and down, squealing with excitement. This was it, I'd got one of the big ones. Then I remembered it was 1st June, the day my car insurance is renewed. I actually burst into tears.
I'm desperately disappointed. I know I'm not alone. I, along with anyone else who received no tickets this time, will get first refusal to apply for any unsold tickets later this month, but what is left? Handball? Meh. I want to go to the stadium.
I can understand why a ballot is a fair way to allocate tickets, but I wish LOCOG had been more open regarding the number of tickets on sale at each price banding.
Take the closing ceremony, for example, some tickets were up for sale for £20.12, but how many? I applied for these - after all, you've got to be in it to win it. There may have only been two tickets for sale at this price, but 20,000 for sale at the next banding. This information would have altered my buying strategy.
I'd also like to know why there were only 20,000 tickets available for the men's 100m final. How many seats are there in the stadium? 100,000? Hmm.
Hey ho, there are worse things happening in the world than me not getting any tickets for the Olympics.
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Me neither Sandy. We applied for 42 tickets across 14 events but nada. I am gutted.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know - we didn't either. Is the only way you know via your credit card statement???
ReplyDeleteHusband applied for ours on his credit card and he doesn't know how to check on-line if they've taken any money so we're still in the dark. He applied for football, of course, here in Manchester, which wasn't oversubscribed so I think he'll get those, but the showjumping? I doubt it. We're telling daughter it will be better on TV.
ReplyDeleteoh bless you Sandy - I feel gutted for you. x
ReplyDeleteI feel gutted for you we didn't get any I wasn't that bothered, I would have liked to have gone but hey ho
ReplyDeleteOh hunny I feel your pain! We didn't get any either :'-(
ReplyDeleteWe got nothing, or so it seems from our credit card. It looks like the 'apply for what you realistically want to attend and can afford' approach didn't work. Must ask friends who applied for £2000 and £5000 worth of tickets what they got!
ReplyDeleteImperfectionist, oh how disappointing. That's terrible luck. sorry to hear that x
ReplyDeleteJenn, yes, they took the money on 31st May. If no money was taken, no tickets. Official confirmation emails are due out by 24th June. x
Working Mum, ooh, fingers crossed you get some tickets. There are a lot of events that will be better viewed on TV, but the atmosphere won't be quite the same! x
Helen, aw, thank you :-) x
Kerry, thank you x
Emma, rubbish, eh? Sorry you didn't get any either :-( x
ReplyDeleteAntonia, no, it would appear that you needed to speculate to accumulate. Our rich friends who applied for £3k or £4k's worth got 10% of what they wanted. x
We applied for about £350 worth of tickets, a mixture of really really optimistic (opening ceremony), things we'd like to see (swimming, athletics), and things we thought would be lower interest (beach volleyball, weightlifting). AND because we're a heck of a ways from London, we put in for some of the football in Cardiff.
ReplyDeleteWe've got *something*, there was a transaction for £68 out of my bank account from "London ticketing" on the 31st. Trouble is, I don't know what we've got. I suspect it's the Cardiff football.
A bank employee told me that they could still take money up to the 16th?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we got what we wanted BUT we only applied for a couple of sessions at the football at Old Trafford. We didn't want the hassle and expense of going to London so really, the only thing possible was Old Trafford but we do like football and Monkey has been DESPERATE to go to OT. In that case, it's a double win.
I feel for the people who didn't get anything but they must have been able to find a way of saying that people who'd got tix for one event were lower priority than those who don't as they did the ballots.
There's always the chance to buy one from an official website in one of the EU countries? Apparently, they HAVE to allow you to buy tickets under EU rules. Go to the London site and check out the sites - don't bother with the French site as I think deadlines have passed to register but I believe the German site is worth a go. Just use Google Translate so you know what the site is telling you. :-)
Squeakymom, I'm glad you got something, fingers crossed it's something you enjoy! :-)
ReplyDeleteKate, I just wish they'd revealed exactly how many tickets were available at each price band. I've had a look on the foreign sites, but they didn't have the tickets I wanted. I'm sure you'll all enjoy OT :-) x
I do feel for you. I was going to apply for handball tickets but at the time we were going to put in our preferences, I had just found out I was pregnant and I thought it'd be best not to be travelling (if only from Germany to London) with a new-ish baby.
ReplyDeleteAfter the ticket "lottery" was finished, I found out I was having an ectopic pregnancy and now, I COULD go but haven't got any tickets.
Who knows, there may still be so e up for grabs e.g. if the athletes people wanted to see don't qualify.
Good luck xx
I guess most of us or should I say all of us here were gutted on our fascination to have such tickets for the upcoming Olympics... But, I still wish I could get two for myself and my partner... c",)
ReplyDeleteFirstly no one is asking why such a extraordinary system. They wanted to charge as much as they could but didn't want the flak from not offering £20 tickets. The question is how many band d tickets were. The answer is, depends on how many band a, b and c tickets were applied for. So if lots of people stumped up for band a there would be less band b, c and d and then the band b tickets and so on until only a few band d. Therefore you weren't necessarily buying a better seat paying more you were just increasing your chance of getting a ticket.
ReplyDelete