Ticketing problems leave stadiums half empty
BOCOG happily announced before the Olympics that all 7-million tickets had been sold out. There was even a mad rush to buy the final round of Olympic tickets. For many Chinese who wanted to see the Olympics, many have to be just happy with watching them at home on television. It’s little surprising some people are calling it the Ghost Olympics.
Even though scalping is illegal in China, some reports have said that tickets are being openly traded. Other than some of the major events that China was in, like the men’s and women’s gymnastics, the stadiums don’t seem to be that full.
Many of the tickets go to corporate sponsors, Olympic officials, sports federations and VIPs. I have long had the suspicion that many people rushed to order tickets on the internet and then never bothered to pay for them. The face value of tickets were very reasonably priced so maybe people got caught up in the excitement of the games, bought tickets and then didn’t bother going to the event. I could imagine this to be the case at outdoor events were it has been fairly hot and humid outside.
Wish that they would do some SRO tickets — called Standing Room Only.
I want to get tickets to the mens and women’s open water 10-k swim. They are on different days out at the rowing venue. That place holds 30,000. There is no way it is going to sell out. But, were are the options to get the tickets?
I’m sure that many are sitting on the tickets and don’t know what to do or how to give them away. At times there ticket buying might have two events at or near the same time and can’t get to them all.
There needs to be a few ‘marektplace’ ways to swap tickets.
Heard of a few scams on tickets as well. Sadly. That will make it worse to get the seats to capacity if there is a lack of trust. Rather not do anything.
Another idea — Allow those with tickets to take a buddie on the same ticket. Or, if you have 2 tickets, allow a third to go along with the two.
Bonus event!
Of course, some events are not going to be with bonus tickets — but some could be.
Perhaps the atheltes and coaches, trainers and such will be able to attend more of the events themselves as they finish their programs. Those people have needed to hold tickets too. Perhaps they can be allowed into the venues without tickets to fill the seats.
Just suggestions.
After being there for the week, we are convinced there was some glitch. There were empty seats (and lots of them) at prime events that are supposed to be and always to sellout such as swimming, gymnastics…we had tickets and witnessed the empty seats. Another thought is that with the lack of people in Olympic Park due to the way that fiasco was arranged by the Chinese, there were no avenues for trading so it is possible, I suppose, that some that were given tickets (as we heard a huge number of Chinese were), or corporate sponsors had no where to go to trade or sell them (especially if scalping is another one of their illegal activities).
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