2012 Olympic tickets in high demand
Hackney-born Olympic triple jumper Phillips Idowu says sign up now for tickets to the London 2012 Olympic Games
This article titled “2012 Olympic tickets in high demand” was written by Anna Kessel, for The Guardian on Friday 22nd April 2011 19.00 UTC
London 2012 organisers say demand for tickets is high before Tuesday’s deadline for applications, although they will not reveal whether the 80% sales target has been met.
“We genuinely don’t know until we’ve got all the final data in,” said Paul Williamson, Locog’s director of ticketing. “We’ve always said that people who apply on day one should have the same chance as the people who apply on the last day so we want to make sure it’s a level playing field for everyone.”
He confirmed that figures would be released once the applications had been processed.
He believes the marketing campaign of the last seven days has resulted in a surge of interest. “We’re confident that we’re on target. We’ve had hundreds of thousands of orders come in. We’ve seen a real lift in applications in the last 48 hours and we expect that to follow through to Tuesday.”
Williamson said fears over the ticketing process had not been borne out. “We’ve got the world’s most complicated sports event – 650 sessions, 26 sports, 17 days at 35 venues. We’ve tried to simplify it as much as we can.”
Tessa Jowell, shadow minister for the Olympics, and Neale Coleman, Boris Johnson’s adviser on London 2012, agree that application numbers have been high. “As far as I’m aware it’s going really well,” said Jowell. “I spoke to Locog just as week ago and I’ve got no reason to believe that there is any problem.”
For those buying the tickets the biggest complaint seems to be the pricing and lack of transparency over exactly what each price bracket buys. Jack Miller, vice-president of the British Athletics Supporters Club, said the process compared favourably with the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002.
However, he criticised the system for not showing customers what kind of view they can expect – fearing a repeat of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics for he bought an expensive ticket with a terrible view.
“I got a grade A ticket for the 100m final in Atlanta … but it turned out to be located around the 200m start line, which was utterly useless for watching the 100m. I felt robbed. I think that we would very much like to have known the layout of the 2012 stadium and where the different price category tickets begin and end.”
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