Like many people throughout the UK, you may be checking your bank account with baited breath over the next few days. Those who have applied for tickets to the London Olympic events will be finding out over the next week if they have been successful, and of course, the money will be taken out of their bank accounts.
The ticket allocation system has come in for a fair amount of criticism. It has been chiefly designed to stop the reselling of tickets via the internet (such as eBay) and prevent "ticket touts" from offering unsold tickets outside the venue at the horrendous markup seen outside most concerts in the capital. To achieve this, tickets will be physically issued as close to the event dates as possible, and will be printed with the purchaser"s name. Ticket holders will only be able to access the event if they also bring along a form of identification, and if a group booking has been secured then at least one of the purchasers must be present when additional party members (work, friends or family) arrive to be let in.
Although this may be understandable in an effort to cut down on black market prices, some tennis enthusiasts watching the French Open may have been less than thrilled to hear an advertisement from one of the event sponsors offering Olympic tickets as a prize for a competition during the programme breaks. It seems that whilst Joe Public will have to scramble through the allocation system, some corporate event sponsors have already secured themselves banks of tickets in hospitality suites, exactly the type of block booking that the whole allocation system was designed to discourage.
There are also questions about the timeframe of charges: although the latest email from the London Olympics to ticket applicants states that tickets will be charged to accounts unless they are confirmed to be allocated, VISA (who handle the transaction for the event) stand to make enormous sums in interest if amounts are kept for a day or two by unsuccessful applicants. This may be especially problematic for those who have ordered far more than their card balance will allow, in an effort to beat the odds on getting tickets for popular events.
The ticket allocation system has come in for a fair amount of criticism. It has been chiefly designed to stop the reselling of tickets via the internet (such as eBay) and prevent "ticket touts" from offering unsold tickets outside the venue at the horrendous markup seen outside most concerts in the capital. To achieve this, tickets will be physically issued as close to the event dates as possible, and will be printed with the purchaser"s name. Ticket holders will only be able to access the event if they also bring along a form of identification, and if a group booking has been secured then at least one of the purchasers must be present when additional party members (work, friends or family) arrive to be let in.
Although this may be understandable in an effort to cut down on black market prices, some tennis enthusiasts watching the French Open may have been less than thrilled to hear an advertisement from one of the event sponsors offering Olympic tickets as a prize for a competition during the programme breaks. It seems that whilst Joe Public will have to scramble through the allocation system, some corporate event sponsors have already secured themselves banks of tickets in hospitality suites, exactly the type of block booking that the whole allocation system was designed to discourage.
There are also questions about the timeframe of charges: although the latest email from the London Olympics to ticket applicants states that tickets will be charged to accounts unless they are confirmed to be allocated, VISA (who handle the transaction for the event) stand to make enormous sums in interest if amounts are kept for a day or two by unsuccessful applicants. This may be especially problematic for those who have ordered far more than their card balance will allow, in an effort to beat the odds on getting tickets for popular events.