Olympics may not sell out

Not too sure about this piece James. Who actually expected every seat for every event (even excluding football) to be sold out? If you've covered two previous summer Olympics, why on earth would you expect it? Lets be honest, weightlifting and beach volleyball are really minor sports in the UK. The fact that handball isn't mentioned would suggest that it has shifted most of its tickets, which is quite remarkable in a country with so few players (and wrestling, don't reckon we have too many players compared to other counties). Boxing, however, is a surprise - don't quite understand that one.
What would be really interesting would be some stats on how full stadia and arenas were at the last few games (especially Sydney, with a sports mad population)?

Maybe people don't like the Olympics as much as the BBC (and others) makes out that they do?

I think a big reason is the impression that the games have somewhat lost their way over the last few months. Tales of ticketing woes, volunteers being left in the dark over the hours they are expected to work, temporary staff being told that they won't receive full holiday pay, scandals over VIP access, torch sales and the general feeling that its a Corporate Sponsor games has put many off.
There's also a feeling that ticket prices for remaining tickets are too high - £495 for a 90 min long diving session?

How many of the remaining 300,000 tickets are for the expensive bands?? I missed out on getting tickets and tried again, only things left that we wanted to see were those that were costing more than £200 per ticket!! I am not going to spend close to £1k for my family to watch a single 3hr session....

If they were to reduce the price of the remaining tickets, then I am pretty sure that they will sell out.

There is a real possibility that the London Olympics will not sell out - Now there's a shock.

I was really bloody angry when I heard they had held back 928,000 non football tickets. REPEAT 928,000 TICKETS This is not a small number for emergencies Oor an accountin error These are tickets the fans really wanted.
Now 9 months later guess what; People have made other arrangements for this summer like holidays; spent the cash; Going to the European footie; etc etc instead of going to the Olympics.

So frankly it serves the Olympic committee right

I'm Olympics mad and was desperately disapointed to miss out in the first round (I did get football tickets). I thought my chance had gone so I compensated by successfully getting paralympics tickets and also went to the Olympic swimming trials. I live in the North West and I can't afford the time or money to go to London 3 times in 6 months so I came to terms with the fact a long time ago that I will be enjoying the BBC coverage. I'm actually gutted that tickets are available but this is all too late now for sensible people that live outside London

Perhaps people, like me, got fed up with the whole debacle when the tickets originally went on sale and booked a long holiday or simply lost their initial passion for it.
Could they have stuffed up the ticket sales process any more than they have? What a joke. What a shame.

Look back at the BBC website in February: "Only Olympic football not sold out".

The public are being messed around by incompetence, and have probably tired of this entire ticket application process. Is another round of mysterious "unsold" tickets we didn't know about planned?

Will the remaining tickets on the London 2012 wesbite - which are in the higher price brackets - be reduced if no-one buys them?

Out of curiosity I logged in to see availability earlier this week and some tickets that we originally applied for (months ago in a previous round), and failed to get, were still on sale.
Did I buy them - No!
They had their chance to shift these tickets and more and they've blown it.

Think there a lot of angry people about this whole process James. The fact that just over 10% of those knocked back first time applied again this time shows that in PR terms this has been a disaster - people have been burned and they switched off from the Olympics. My parents-in-law are a prime example: so excited when it began, got mucked about and are now so apathetic and going on holiday instead. But it's inspiration bit that gets me. David Beckham was talking the other week about how this will inspire a generation. My little girl saw Becky Adlington on TV recently and asked us to get tickets to the swimming; for me as a parent that's quite exciting, that you could take your child to Olympics and it will leave a life-long impression on them. But again with this ballot we couldn't, she misses out and I've joined by parents-in-law in just being frustated with it all.

I am not interested enough in sport to have applied for any tickets. However, could it be that people who were unsuccessful in the earlier rounds then made other plans and booked summer holidays?

I would guess that the mistake the organisers made was firstly, not ensuring that the ticket website was robust enough to stand its initial onslaught and secondly, ensured that the exact sizes of temporary seating structures was known from 'day one' so that all of the tickets could be sold when the interest was highest.

P.S. Releasing more tickets (which we had previously been told were all sold out) at this late stage makes planning accommodation and travel prohibitively expensive.

Tried last year. Tried in the early priority window. Tried in the week long priority window. All the time I was put in a queue and then told that there were no tickets left. Went back onto search and low and behold the tickets appeared to be available. Repeated the process many times, only to get the same thing again and again. Got so fed up that I gave up. This was for various sports.

On another note, is watching football in Coventry, Glasgow really being part of the Olympics?? In my view, it's an emphatic no.

Too many high priced tickets for the non-football events mentioned is one of the problems. Holding back so many contingency is a further issue. I expect the vast majority to sell-out and surely this will still be the best attended games ever. At no games in the past have the morning sessions of the athletics been remotely busy while that will not be the case for London.

Maybe when the tickets initially went on sale people were carried away with the general enthusiasm, but with this week's sale they're acting more calmly and are deciding not to pay for the more expensive tickets to watch sports in which they don't have a great deal of interest simply because it's an Olympics.
Why should these Games be any different from any other one?

This has really annoyed me. As a very keen Olympics enthusiast and teacher I have being trying to enthuse my kids in school about the Olympics. I enrolled in the "get set for 2012" network and went through a lengthy application process to get the next level of resources and access. As a result we got some tickets for the football at Old Trafford. 6 tickets in fact. Great, I thought. Better than nothing. On reading this blog though, I could have taken many more kids to some different sports as well as the football and enable the kids I work with to fully embrace what this should be about.

Tickets have not sold old because only the highest price categories remain for most sports and the prices are too high.

Simple as.

Attempting to purchase tickets on the official website was a frustrating experience. Having failed in the first two rounds we thought the hype meant it would be straightforward third time around. The website allowed me to put my choice in the basket before indicating non-availablitity. When trying for a different event I first had to clear my basket which contained something I'd been told was unavailable. After numerous attempts I considered throwing my laptop out of the window. The organisers do not deserve a 'sell out' and I don't think they could have achieved a much less fair system even if they'd tried.

Like #6 we applied for many tickets but when they didn't come we applied for paralympics instead and got those. The fact is that the totally 'wealthy centred' way they have run the ticketing has just meant that most normal folk have become disillusioned with the whole thing and have lost their enthusiasm for it.

I also find it funny that beach volleyball was expected to sell out. Why? It is a holiday past time that has become an olympic sport for very dubious reasons and proper sport fans want to see proper sports (mind you the synchronised swimming has apparently sold out, and the rhythmic gymnastics so that puts a damper on that theory).

Just ridiculous because when the tickets first come out all I could get hold of was football tickets in Cardiff. Then a few weeks again the same sessions I applied for came onto the market but because I got Football tickets first time round I was banned for applying for them..I was left very frustrated and in the end wished I'd never bothered.

I do have tickets for two events (one of them at the 8th attempt) and was looking for specific things in this final sale. I am travelling from abroad and have fixed dates, which has made things difficult. None of the events that my family is interested in has availability for the dates that are possible for us save for individual tickets (no use for a party of 3!!).

I was keen to get tickets for my family for this historic event. In the first ballot I failed and simply mentally wrote the Olympics off in my head. Coming to this decision was made much easier by the mind-numbingly high price of tickets and the fact that the stadium will be filled with drunken corporate johnnies in suits who don't care where they are as long as the company paid for the ticket.

Couple of points. According to the website on Wednesday morning at 11am there were tickets available for sessions and price bands that I'd tried and failed to buy during the first ballot last year. Massively frustrating. Unlike an earlier poster, I actually tried again to buy them. Three hours later of a spinning logo saying 'requesting tickets' for fifteen minutes at a time, I'd secured precisely zero tickets. This morning, the website still lists tickets available that don't seem to exist when you try to buy them. I hope after the event there will finally be some transparency to this shambles and we can finally get to see in detail what tickets in what price bands were made available during each sales period.

I am not sure this is a real news story unless we are behind average ticket sales for previous Games, and I strongly suspect that we are ahead by a significant margin which shows the hige appetite for this fantastic event. It is not easy to obtain maximum value for taxpayers whilst pricing the tickets right to be fair to people and to shift them and the balance has generally been good although many of those remaining are of course too expensive and will no doubt re-appear at a lower price soon. What has not been good is two things. First, the timetable for ticket sales which should have been completed six months earlier considering the demand and need for people to make plans to visit London to fit in with the events they have secured tickets for. Second, the performance, yet again, of our national irritant Ticketmaster. I am sure that almost every person in this nation is fed up with a company whose only job it is to sell tickets being responsible for repeated failures for major events and then charging a highly insulting booking fee for the pleasure. It is high time that procurers such as LOGOC got their act together in holding ticket agencies to account through better drafted contracts as it is highly likely that a lot of the bad feeling discussed in the other comments is as a result the failure of Ticketmaster to produce a proper product. Where, for instance, is the resale facility that should have been in place some time ago? That is probably the real story worth looking into here.

As others have said, it's just too late to release more tickets. People who didn't get tickets have resigned themselves to not going and made other plans. I would also suggest that for people who live further from London there is an assumption (maybe correct) that there won't be any accomodation left now. The should have just released all of the tickets earlier. I am looking forward to the Olympics but the ticketing has been a shambles.

Main problem = price! I logged on on wednesday as soon as the site opened at 11am. I was thinking I would try and get some of the cheaper tickets for one of table tennis, badminton, or one of the different gymnastics events. I tried to select pairs of band D & C tickets for pretty much every session of all of these, and despite the website saying there were some available, after the waiting period of about 15mins each time, it said "None available" every time. I even tried for single tickets - there clearly weren't any cheap tickets actually availalble. They expect thousands of people to buy incredibly overpriced top band tickets (£85 plus for a table tennis heat?!) at a time when the country is in recession. Dream on!

I've ranted and raved aplenty about the Olympic ticketing system. I was hugely disillusioned by the whole thing and I think a lot of people were the same. Overpriced tickets, failing systems and generally bad treatment of not only the general public - but specifically the people of London - only served to create a feeling of resentment. London 2012 messed this up from the start, and while the points PortyJohn makes in the 1st comment here are valid, I would have expected most tickets to be gone by now, and they probably would have been were the common man/woman not treated so badly.

Frankly,i believe the great British public,as a whole, have no interest whatsoever in the Olympic games.They (we) have far greater things to consider!
The only people who have the faintest interest other than the competitors,are the egotistical attention seekers and shoulder rubbers.It seems we are running out of those people now..Perhaps Lord Coe would like to buy the excess tickets.?

And what about the resale process ? No way at the moment of reselling legally, despite promises that there would be an official resale service. Are Locog scared that allowing official resales is just going to make their situation even worse ?

Having applied for tickets all over the place, across a wide range of events and a wide range of prices, I ended up with one pair of tix for handball, which I was pleased with. However, at the same time I was advised that tickets were 'still available' for four other sports which I'd also applied for. I was not told why I hadn't secured tickets in those events, only that I hadn't got them. I then found out that, because I'd been 'successful' in getting my one pair of handball tickets, I could not apply for anything in the 'second chance' ballot.

There was no indication at that time that I'd be offered further chances later on. There was no indication when they first took my money what I'd be watching, or when.

All the while the organisers were telling us how transparent the process was, how much the buyers knew about it. The way they've mismanaged it, the shocking arrogance in dealing with people who wanted tickets and the general disregard for the public on this is now being visited back on the organisers by that same public. They are reaping what they themselves have sown, and have managed to make some even completely pro-Games people like me feel disgruntled. Well done all round.

I would assume that this is simply an issue of the high price tickets not being sold. I know it's hard for media people and politicians on £60k+ salaries to understand but £125 to watch a 2 hour sporting event is not remotely feasible for a lot of people Of course there's the prawn sandwich brigade that has plenty of disposable income, and the diehards who will sacrifice their savings to go, but for the rest of us it's just not worth it.

LOCOG have created their own problems. The sale of tickets has appeared a muddle right from the beginning. People have been put off by the constant stream of negative publicity.
I for one am already sick to death of the hype that the Olympics has generated. There is enough enthusiasm for the Olympics (as shown by the crowds currently arrending the torch relay, but will we get tired of this in a few weeks rime?) LOCOG has NOT got it right! Even this morning, the torch was due to leave Worcester at a certain time - but at the last minute this time was advanced by 15 minutes leaving many with no sight of the flame!

@155paul155

Superbly put. Like you, despite what LOCOG are putting out today that tickets remain unsold, yes, the ones in the £200+ bands remain unsold, and will in most likelihood remain so. The whole process has become far from a family affair. Like you said, £1k for a short session makes the mind boggle.

So finally the Glitterati that is LOCOG might realise that the vast majority of the UK are not interested in the Games and are sick and tired of all the money that is being wasted on it

i think people have given up . i have tried at every possible stage,i have one morning session and one afternnon session ,at probably my 5th or 6th choice sports . (Nothing i really wanted to see),and i am still trying !! The events and prices showing as available are still coming up with nothing !! I have spent hours doing this ,most people will have given up .I have instead booked for the theatre ,glorious goodwood and legoland !! time and money have now ran out !!!

I wanted to apply but when they decided to restrict it to only 4 tickets I didn't bother because there are 5 of us in myfamily (wife and 3 daughters). Who was going to miss out ?? in the end bought tickets to the paralympics instead

I'm a British ex-pat now living in Finland. I applied for two different events and the opening ceremony in the initial ballot, but ended up with nothing. That being the case, I decided not to holiday in England this summer at all, and instead postpone my visit to a later date when the Olympics will have already finished.

I remember some people getting tens of thousands of pounds worth of tickets at the first stage, while I, and many others, got nothing. If I had got anything at all, I would now consider buying tickets to more events, but as I am now not going to be in the country, I can't. If the organisers had ensured that everyone who applied got access to some tickets, rather than drawing it randomly and eventually giving a handful of people a ridiculous amount, I think they wouldn't be having this problem now.

We applied initially and were unsuccessful. We haven't bothered since! Cost of getting there, as well as crazy hotel prices means we make do with a great view from the television.
We would only pay to go to watch athletics or swimming, apart from possibly the tennis, but we often go to Wimbledon through the public ballot anyway, so not really that fussed.
Basically, I'm not surprised the minor activities have failed to sell, when you consider all the expensive add-ons like travel and accommodation

I failed to get tickets in the first round, and so, I've now planned to spend my summer holiday elsewhere. However, I have bought tickets to see the football at St. James Park, which I'm looking forward to, and I won't have to pay a fortune to stay in London. I do feel that the events taking place outside of London are part of the Olympics, and I hope that the crowds are a reasonable size in all of the venues.

Dont understand the claim of high-availability. Tried to get a pair of decently priced tickets to the beach volleyball-nothing as far as i can see under £150 for the pair...just too much. The bottom price range in the drop-down menu on the site is never available to actually buy...so decided to gamble and wait until the final few are released hoping to find something of value.

The frankly obscene prices for niche elements of the games look a case of Emperors new clothes to me...i genuinly think if Tiddlywinks or Big Trains Stare out were Olympic events plenty of suckers would have laid out to attend...its a bit daft.

This late in the day, nobody could be confident of finding affordable hotels in London. So the realistic market for these late tickets is limited to people living close enough for a day trip. LOCOG needs to learn from package holiday firms and start marking down last-minute tickets.

Many reasons why i dont buy
1 You cant find what is available where and the catagories are confusing unless you have a time table to work them all out.
2 Do I actually wan to spend £45 to watch a match...or a sport when i can watch the best bits for nothing,Besides which, I would sooner spend it on my bills which grow daily instead of squandering it on such activity!
3 Many are to far away to travel.I am not that keen on most sports anyway.
4 Because of the CHOAS due to the traffic designs living in alongside the games will be horrendous and we here are dreading the traffic and the huge cost which brings little long term benefit to the area other than a few houses and prettying up on some buildings.It will be come a white elephant as the O2 was for years!Would have been better to build an industrial park to help unemployment..although a huge number of east Europeans did well out if its construction.
Finally Because of the games i know find that the council have put in temporary parking zones..which means they wont want to remove them..so adding more costs in having to pay for parking were before it was free!Another rip off legacy.

The events I wanted sold out. Why should I go to events I have no interest in - beach volleyball - really??

The three O's. Overblown, Over hyped and Over priced. They'd have to drop the prices a lot to get me going. Now where shall I go on holiday...............

It's not a huge surprise really. The excitement and enthusiasm of 12 months ago has been shattered by the real-life tales of woe from people you know, the media. A "pub" or "watercooler" convo goes.. "did you hear there's lots of new Olympic tickets on sale tomorrow" .. "yeah, but you never get the ones you want or the website doesn't work"

However, before we beat ourselves up and start worrying we're going to embarrass ourselves, DO all past olympic sessions sell-out? I'd rather a few empty seats than bussing in enforced-fans a la Beijing.

In the remaining weeks just drop the prices right down. But do it soon. If the world has no interest in the qualifying rounds of the women's flyweight weightlifting, then offer free tickets to local schools etc.

Yes, tickets were available but at £300 or £450 per ticket for a couple of hours entertainment families of four were priced out. Again, the Locog PR machine has said "millions" of tickets would be available but most of these were for a football tournament that ranks below the league cup as a competitive event. Add in the cost of food, drinks and travel and the cost of attending any event is going to run in to hundreds of pounds.

Locog has found out that the discerning British public is not stupid and will not be had for fools.

By the way, didn't China have to bus in students to bulk up crowds four years ago?

AFTER THE INITIAL EUPHORIA OF LONDON GETTING THE GAMES THE EXCITEMENT WAS DROWNED BY THAT UNLOVED AND TERRIBLE LOGO , FOLLOWED BY THE UNLOVED AND TERRIBLE TEAM STRIP AND TO CAP IT ALL WE HAVE DURAN DURAN to " ENTERTAIN " US .YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE A TRUE SPORTS FANATIC TO GET EXCITED AT THIS POINT .THERE ARE REAL SIGNS THAT THE COMMITTEE ARE OUT OF TOUCH .

Well, this is surprising. I tried 10 times to buy tickets for Diving, Beach Volley, Sailing, and Rowing when the ballot went live and after each time there was a 15 minute countdown eventually telling me that no tickets were left... I also didn't get anything in the ballot. I have given up now, although I'm hoping to be able to see the Beach Volley from my office window instead, and maybe watch the cycling go past my window at home. If I can somehow buy tickets as you suggest, I would love to hear from you as it all seems to be horrifically badly organised embellished with elaborate BS.

Well said Estesark (#37). The allocation process was a farce!

Yawn

I'm wondering if there's a correlation between unsold Olympic tickets and the relatively very low ticket purchase by English football supporters for the Euro Championship in Poland and Ukraine.

We're living in economically worrying times and the disposable income of the average public may not be like it used to be. The cost of living goes up and people have to prioritise in order to manage.

In addition, the olympics aren't being staged in a cheap city. For those of us who live a long car journey from London have to contend with ridiculous fuel prices and parking charges. Watching the games on TV at home is sounding more and more like a very good deal, economically.

Is this really a surprise? Or maybe it's not just me who had a mild interest in the games, but is now so feed up with the countdown and constant press coverage that I'll be imposing my own media black out for the course of the games and pretending tht it's all gone away! In reality, the majority of sports involved surely struggle to be classed even as a minority interest in the UK any other time, so why should this change now? I'm with Al Murray on this one- every time I hear the words London 2012, I mutter under my breath "it's going to be a little bit sh.."

Problem?
Olympics overhyped, and over priced.
With punters ripped off at costly accommodation and expected high food/drink prices, I'm surprised that the unsold tickets aren't even higher.
Take into account the inevitable transport chaos in London, I can't imagine why anyone would want to be within 25 miles of the Olympics.

Agree with No.4 - the prices for the remaning tickets are very high.

I along with many others tried for tickets,I did not ask for many,I only wanted to be at the games ,I ended up with none and nobody I know got any ,then I get a email saying you can try again,all against a backdrop of big companies getting loads,yes I was able to buy tickets this time round did I ,no I did not,they can stick them wherever Coe and company want but they will not get my money .

I have just taken a look at the ticketing website, it is really badly designed. Why on earth are all the sold out events still in the drop down list of events. It is really not hard at all to make a list that only includes events that still have tickets.

Also, with releasing another 150,000 tickets in a month, that will be only about a month before the games. Planning a trip to the Olympics is not something you do spontaneously, I think they will struggle to shift these and, as mentioned, it is a kick in the teeth to those who missed out originally to suddenly release more tickets.

As many other people have said here, I was pretty excited about the Olympics and with a cousin competing in it, this could have been a once in a lifetime opportunity to see him compete in it. Instead the farcical ticketing allocation meant that despite ordering quite a number of tickets for various events I got nothing.
After that you have the rubbish logo, those terrible mascots, the corporate machine kicking into absolute overdrive and the disruption it will probably cause to the area I really don't have much enthusiasm for it. And from a straw poll of many friends and colleagues, they don't either. There's a lot of apathy out there despite what news organisations are trying to project.

Whatever else happens at the olympics, I hope that all the competitors have a wonderful time!

With regards to ticketing, I hope that the failings of LOCOG are examined after the event. Irrespective of LOCOG's claims that the process has been successful and that they have many satisfied purchasers, they have singularly failed to recognise that the process was poorly though out and then badly managed.

I was desperate to get tickets for sports I took part in but I didn't get any in the 1st bidding round. I decided that I would not bid again as I was disillusioned with how it was being handled.

My wife and I decided to go and visit one of our daughters who lives in the USA whilst the olympics is on and our other daughter and her family are joining us. We feel like real winners!

Anyway, good luck to everyone who has the opportunity to compete.

Shocked that over 900,000 were held back from 1st ballot. I think a lot more of those would have been sold if they had been made available then. More availability at that stage may also have avoided the freefall in goodwill that occured when so may people got zero from the 1st attempt. I know so many people who were so disillusioned that they have simply not bothered to apply since. It's easy to be smart with hindsight but the reality is that LOCOG did a great job creating demand and then failed to deliver on supply.

Originally very interested, but not successful in obtaining any tickets. More and more disillusioned: so many tickets for 'celebrities', special travel for VIPs; concerns about travel times, delays, heavy handed and slow security; excessive prices for food and drink..we will be overseas and watch key events on TV

The ticketing process is still a shambles. I tried to buy tickets for several events during last week's limited release sale (to people who applied previously but were unsuccessful). The system showed that tickets were available, but when you tried to buy them it went away to think about it for 15 minutes and then told you they were no longer available. However, when you went back to review other events it still showed the tickets you had just tried to buy as available! To use a system that doesn't show real time availability in this day and age is ridiculous. I tried for a number of 'available' events over a number of days with the same result. I eventually just gave up, deciding not to waste any more time with this. I suspect many others have been in the same situation.

The main problem is that (for whatever reason) it's a process that the organisers have made up as they go along. The ballot was actually about as fair as it could have been, but after that it's been a bit all over the place. That said, the obvious reason for the unsold tickets is that they are in the ludicrously high price bands for the 'lesser' events. It's going to be very difficult for them to reduce the prices as many will have already paid them, but it's that or empty seats. It'll certainly be interesting to see what they do...

It's quite simple really. A huge investment has been made by the UK taxpayers in staging the Olympic Games in London in 2012. This I support, thinking that there may well be an equivalent economic, social, cultural & sporting benefit to the UK from this investment. Then what emerges is that the whole project, is managed as a closed, private, entity. The myriad corporate businesses who are benefitting from association or direct involvement with the Games, with the avid encouragement of the corporate & government PR machines - are in fact determining the character, status and reputation of the Games. It's a long way from its original ideals. I'm not against business involvement in cultural events and activities, the opposite, but its seems to me that the tail is wagging the dog....

I, like many, became so angry and frustrated with the inept and overpriced ticketing process, that I refuse now to participate in it any further...

I would like to ask if we will ever get to see a final financial statement for the Games...a final analysis of the value of our investment against promised benefits and legacy, or will it get lost in the (often corrupt) political manoeuvring and in fighting which politicians, the media, corporate business etc will no doubt engage in.

Its too big, too corporate - I thought the 1992 Games in Barcelona seemed to have the balance just about right. Inspiring, competitive, cultural, sporting...

Wouldn't surprise me one iota if we see social & political unrest in August in the UK - the Olympics are a dramatic metaphor for the have's and the have nots...

I'd love to go. But I don't have the money they want for the tickets. Plus my husband is in the armed forces and they have a leave ban for the entire olympics and paralympics - so we can't go as a family anyway. So i guess I'll just watch on tv.

LOCOG chose ticketmaster as their preferred ticketing agent, it went downhill from there.

As others have said, the remaining tickets are all in the high price band and people from outside London just can't afford those along with the expensive rooms and travel costs that will be available this close to the games.

As for "lack of interest" in the games though, rubbish. The sheer number of people lining the streets to watch the Olympic Torch go by shows that people are interested but it has to be at the right price and has to be done fairly.

BTW #29, there was a chance to resell tickets earlier in the year. Maybe all the tickets left are those that were obtained by people in the ballet who just tried to apply for every ticket going and just kept the ones they wanted. Letting people apply for thousands of pounds worth of tickets just wasn't fair.

The reason there are so many tickets left unsold is the prohibitive cost of them. Yes I applied the first time around and was unsuccessful but I only applied for the cheapest seats because they were all I could afford. Nothing has changed, I still cannot afford almost £500 for a diving ticket yet those are available and it's an event I applied for. It's a ridiculous figure to spend. Also, the 4 ticket limit wasn't helpful for a family of 6. We could never have all gone together, and as my children were all looking forward to going, which ones should I have chosen to leave at home?

I wonder how many of these unsold tickets are actually returned coroporate hospitality seats that remain unsold.

A number of firms are very clearly avoiding the Olympics becuase they do not want to be seen providing expensive hospitality whilst sacking large numbers of staff.

Ticketmaster cannot attract enough opprobrium save for the wallies who appointed them. Trouble is we let the "public sector" "run" the show - and this is what you get.

I applied for tickets in the first round last year; I didn't get any, and I was so shocked at the unfairness of the process (a few people getting everything they applied for with many people, like me, getting nothing at all) that I was put off the whole thing. I'm glad there are going to be so many empty seats - it serves LOCOG right.

I think one of the major factors putting people off is how difficult it is to see which tickets are still available on the website. It is a shame because other ticketmaster sites are much more advanced. I recently purchased several tickets for the league one playoff final at Wembley through a ticketmaster website. The website allowed me to view availability in each block of the stadium and was updated on a realtime basis. why could this technology not be used for the olympic site?

They sounded all cocky and confident when they won the bid 7, yes seven, years ago and yet a few months ago they still hadn't sorted the football fixtures, or the final configurations of the various venues. Meanwhile, where do they think many people are now going to find the money - our country has gone broke. Too many confusing announcements about the various stages of ticketing, too many statements saying events have sold out when they haven't. A lack of clarity, even honesty, about the demands the IOC puts on the staging country, which we weren't told about upfront. There's a lot that's gone wrong. I'm hoping I'll still be cheering, but I think our ambitions to stage this were beyond our means & capabilities.

Apart from the shambles, that Is the allocation process, another problem is the lack of transport provision for those of us who live outside of London. I have tickets to a volleyball session but when I saw basketball tickets were still available I thought I’d add the GB women’s game against Brazil, on the same day, to my trip. It’s scheduled to finish at midnight. Last National Express coach from Olympic Park – 22.30, last train from St. Pancras – 00.15, last Megabus from Victoria 23.30. Decided not to bother.

Surprised are you, then you are as stupid as your pay masters.

Lets see 'limited availability' against tickets for Formula 1 on Silverstone website, who should have ditched LIMPics coverage instead of cutting back F1???

I'm a big Olympic and general sports fan and would like to offer an unbiased view on the process.
First time around i applied for around £500 worth of tickets and ended up with 2 Badminton tickets whereas most of my friends got zero, so was over the moon. When the football tickets went on sale afterwards I snapped up 2 of these also in Manchester just as it was the only £20 (cheap tickets) I could get and also didn't know who would be playing. The Badminton tickets were also £20 each which i think is a great price. I could then not apply for anymore tickets until the general sale on Wednesday. Lots of tickets were showing up on system as available so took my time selecting them and then all kept coming up Sold out. The system should have been quicker to update when tickets had sold out, but they never got round to it and this frustrated people as well as myself. It became a timely affair but with much searching and hit and miss selecting on all different sessions and sports I managed to pick up 2 Canoe sprint, 2 Volleyball and 2 Archery tickets. The dearest tickets being £30 for archery and £20 for the other two sports and this was up until yesterday. Now it seems only high priced tickets are left which in my opinion won't shift so easily. Most people would probably be in the same price bracket as me and so they should reduce the tickets to the average paid hard working sports fan like myself and those with children who would like them to get actively involved in sports and the Olympic theme.
Summary - So the system could have been a lot better, pricing is good on the lower tickets but overly priced on the higher and another joke is the cost of delivery. I have 5 different tickets coming and they know that. They could and probably will send them out together - why am I being charge £6 (which is a joke as it is) for every different ticket I ordered. So I have to pay £30 delivery charges which is criminal, but they can get away with that can't they.
On a positive note it should be applauded that a free travelcard comes with every ticket purchased so at least you don't have to pay £10 or more each for that and on the canoe sprint which is in Bucks they even pay for your transport out there which is very good of them.

James, having read your article I went on the Olympic site and tried to get 2 basketball tickets, for 4 different sessions. After going through the laborious process, everytime I got the 'no tickets available message'. All other leading sports events have well designed systems that prompt alternatives in the event of non availability. If there ARE tickets available for some events, it's probably because no-one knows where to find them!

A few reasons I would give here.

One is that people got disillusioned the first time around. The first ballot was well enough organised - but would have gone a lot better had they let people order tickets in order of preference and give a maximum budget. People would have felt freer to go for a lot more tickets without having to worry about having thousands of pounds coming out of the bank at an unspecified moment. I bet a lot of people went for only a few tickets because they were afraid of spending a huge amount - only to find that they ended up with nothing. Since then, those of us who got maybe one or two tickets in the original ballot (like I did) have been consistently pushed to the back of the queue with no chance - until this week - of getting any more (and even then we were expected to be shut out).

But the current sale has its own problems. The system for buying tickets now is really quite Byzantine, as you have to add tickets to your basket and request them before you can find out if there are any left or not. If there aren't any left, you then have to remove it from your basket and back out to the start. The whole process might take two minutes and when you've done it five times it gets quite frustrating.

Why are the events where there's nothing available still in the list of things you might buy? Why are all the price points all still listed even when only the higher prices remain? It's also worth bearing in mind that there is still a limit of four tickets per session and four sessions per order - instantly removing every family in the country with three or more children from contention. Particularly if the tickets aren't shifting, why not relax that?

Surprise surprise. After the monumental fiasco of operation 'lets make it as hard as possible for anyone to get a ticket' can you wonder that folk couldn't care less? Even if you were a keen supporter of the olympics anyone who has tried to get tickets and failed or simply gave up by the mindbending complexity of the application rules or even the risk that they would clean out your bank account would have lost their enthusiasm by now. The organisers were so precious about them, you know what- keep 'em!

A simple look at the available tickets explains it, the tickets are in the top band, for morning or afternoon qualification sessions. The hardest to sell. And also the sessions which will be the least watched as its when people are working. Its hardly a massive issue.

Even if they didnt sell a single more ticket, which obviously wont be the case. You are talking less than 300k tickets out of 6 million or so in non football sports. Or about 5%, which is hardly big swathes of the crowd, and you could easily fill with free tickets if you were desperate.

This blog is sensationalist nonsense, and uses big numbers to scare people, but when put into a real context, are actually pretty minimal. Especially given ITS 2 MONTHS AWAY.

Seriously BBC, you are better than articles like this

My reason for the lack of interest - the BBC.

Why would I want to pay hard-earned money to go to see a limited number of people - of whom I will have heard of few, if any - participating in a single sport, in which I may have little interest, almost certainly being fleeced in terms of travel and refreshment costs, when I can stay at home and watch pretty much any of the events (two or more at a time, using PC and television, if I so choose) in comfort and with my own choice of refreshment?

The BBC is promising the best-ever coverage, and I am paying (through my licence fee) for that coverage - I fully intend to maximise my consumption.

And if the weather remains hot, the idea of an [over]crowded London - esp. in terms of public transport - is truly horrendous.

I think that the British public have become aware that we are being manipulated and discriminated against and would rather watch on TV than give any more money to these thieves.

To have any realistic chance of a sell out, organisers should offer the remaining non-football tickets @ £20.00 each, and football ones @ £10.00, or give them all for nothing to schools. Games are already paid for by our Council Tax anyway!

They must be mad if they expect people to pay £50.00 to watch a preliminary round women's basketball match!

I will be refusing to watch a single second of this over-hyped marketing gorge-fest and hugely resent the fact that my TV license fee which I have no alternative but to purchase is being used to subsidise such coverage which will only serve to massage the egos of participants already too full of their own importance who offer nothing to the hard working tax payers of this nation.

As for the nonsense surrounding 'The Torch' (is this the follow up to another over-bloated BBC creation 'The Voice'?), just what's so special about a glorified minor's lamp. It does not have mythical powers like an artefact from an Indiana Jones movie and the way the Beeb are covering anyone would think it was a creature from another planet or had healing powers like The Golden Fleece from Jason and the Argonauts. I was half expecting to hear ET has stepped off the plane in Cornwall for all the ludicrous hype when the money wasted on this pointless exercise it could have been delivered instead by DHL.

Is it possibly the ludicrous level of security?

Apart from the civilian security such as Police, private contractors, metal detectors, food and drink confiscators, bag rummagers, "safe" food and drink salesmen, etc., we have:

* One division of troops (13,500 men)
* One amphibious assault ship + >1 hovercraft(!)
* One helicopter attack ship (!)
* Close air support (Jet fighters - Even more (!))
* Anti aircraft batteries (Number unknown - Check the rooftops))
* Special forces in a "state of readiness"

I may not be the world's best parent, but I know better than to take my children to a potential war zone. The few people who I know who've sold their tickets have done so precisely because of this national display of paranoia and cowardice.

I hope this is just the useless people bidding the threat up but what if some innocent incident causes an overreaction amongst all these military types who, capable and brave though they undoubtedly are, are not trained for this sort of thing?

I would love to go to the Olympics with my family - all 5 of us! I was rejected the first time round so was in the first round of this most recent offering - however you can only buy 4 tickets! Therefore not going at all unless this changes!

It's all down to trust, or lack thereof. Everyone have the Olympic Committee the benefit of any doubts, initially. Teething problems are acceptable. Instead what we are faced with is untruths about what tickets remain. The committee have tried to "manage" expectations, and with a flawed approach have been found seriously wanting.

I know people who tried to buy a lot of tickets from the initial offering - and got nothing. Once bitten, twice shy. Now they don't want to buy a single ticket - even for their favourite sports.

Speaking personally, it's not lack of interest stopping me getting more tickets, I already have several and am keen to see more events. It's the price of what's left that is putting me off - my strategy has been to see as many different sports as possible but that means I cannot spend too much for any single session. I suspect others feel the same, people only have so much money for discretionary spending and together with the painful process of searching the website to discover what is actually available, I simply cannot shell out another £40+ for 2 more hours of an obscure sport when I've already committed several hundred quid to tickets. If they'd allocated more £20 tickets I and many others would have snapped them up but as it is I will simply stay at home and watch the rest of the Olympics on TV.

Sounds like they deserve an Olympic gold for poor service, poor delivery & terrible customer satisfaction. Luckily for them they have a monopoly, they can't go bust, can they ?

Only sport I follow is football, so my money is going on Euro 2012. Travel, accommodation & tickets all sorted minimum fuss. I now realize I never want England to host the World Cup. I would not pay some of the prices I've seen mentioned even for the final itself.

Another point, families of 5 or 6 can only have 4 tickets for an event. Does that rule apply to corporate hospitality tickets as well ? One good point about this, if Olympic athletes are no longer amateurs. At the least the organizers are trying to maintain that tradition :-)

I tried to buy tickets in the first round for myself and my 2 kids - I only bid for the cheapest tickets for 4 or 5 events and didn't get any. I think it was so badly handled - if you could afford to bid for over £1000 worth of tickets it increased your chances - I understand some people bid £20-30,000 !! It's so unfair - basically the process was so weighted in favour of the rich. It really put me off the Olympics and bidding again. However, I did try bidding again last week because my kids wanted to go but I was unable to get cheap tickets for any events in the Olympic Park. Among others that I tried for, I bid for BMX tickets @ £20 each and was told to wait 15 mins but then I didn't get them.
The bid was won on the basis that the London Olympics would re-generate a poor part of London and also be inclusive - when it clearly is not. Yes the East End is being re-generated but again this will benefit house-owners - not the poor who live in rented accommodation who are/will have rent increases and will have to move further out. I have lived in the East End since 1978 and I own my own home - so personally I will benefit. Having initially been enthusiastic about the London Olympics I now feel really disgusted and dismayed at the hypocrisy of the organization.

I gave up after the initial ticket allocation after finding out that some people received all the tickets they asked for! while others (including myself) received none at all! In that case it hardly seems a 'fair' ballot.
I like others have looked at the other ticket sales and found the price bands left are far too expensive and the process in finding anything too time consuming.
I have decided that I will watch the games from the comfort of home with friends and relatives.

One reason for the slowdown is that most people have made plans for the summer not to include the Olympics. Those are probably the same people who applied last year only to find that so many people applied they're probably thinking "no possible change of me getting a ticket!"

going to Olympics with family (equestrian), then joined by four friends for a 9-day stay in London. We got odd tickets between us , although no athletics. Three of us have numb bums and fingers this last two days trying to fill in gaps with any remaining sports. Every time we were poised to pressthe final button together( remember, we are five, so must be sure of a 3 + 2 order because of max.4 stipulation.) the message" no match can be found" came up even though it told us tickets were still available!
Now , tonight it's the lead story on 6pm news that tickets are still available!
Can't get into my account ;- "this web site is up-dating. please try later" has been the message for at least a week. It's been a shambles. And we're among the keen ones. We wish we hadn't bothered
Paulshrig, cheshire

Ghastly ticketing process. Far too little information and apparently designed to frustrate. I have given up on Olympic tickets despite initial enthusiam, after hours wasted. I ended up buying Paralympic swimming tickets only after getting through on phone; by some miracle we got 3 tickets on a Saturday morning. The whole process is unhelpful and arrogant, and does nothing to dispel the image of LOCOG and the Olympics as an overgrown bureaucratic monster.

I was hoping to get tickets to watch the men's USA basketball team. I was more than happy to go to a group game. However the information and schedule was not released until after the tickets were already gone. When I rang them about this in the previous sales window the customer rep LIED to me and told me that they could not release the schedule till after all the qualifiers were known. But yet they did release it, the day after the tickets sold out despite the qualifiers still unknown.

I believe this was a MALICIOUS and DELIBERATE ploy to get peoople to randomly buy tickets in the hope of striking lucky to watch the team or match of their choice. This kind of strategy is heaven for the ticket touts as they simply bought up everything they could and will now make a huge profit on the desirable games from a frustrated general public that never had a fair chance to go for the tickets they wanted.

In addition to this on the 23rd the situation was even worse. I started at 11am. Spent three hours in the queue trying combinations and waiting fifteen-thirty minutes only to be told each time that there was no exact match. How is this a first come first served basis? Surely they could have given you a choice to say 'any price' to make it more straight forward.

I do not believe for one instant that a system could not have been set up where you would know before hand whether a ticket was available or not before being put in a queue for x amount to time to complete a purchase.

The entire system has been set up with a complete and utter disregard for the general public. So now I have some tickets but not really any that I wanted. I'm sure there are countless others in a similar position but the people at the top of the pile are slapping themselves in the backs because the tickets have 'sold.' Which it turns out they haven't.

The entire affair has left a very bad taste in my mouth and a very bad opinion of this event, it's organisers, the city of London and the UK government for allowing such a shambolic state of affairs. I have bought tickets to many events in many places. I have missed out in the past on tickets from coming too late to the party. But never before have I been left feeling so bitter, frustrated and cheated by the unfairness of the process.

P.S. I wonder how the rest of the tickets will be released. Or will we simply be left in the dark to refresh the page every five minutes?

P.P.S. What further worries is that any reporting on this issue seems to be focused on the fact of unsold tickets. Where is the investigative journalism taking apart the process and the cynical treatment of the general public by the event organisers?

All reasonably priced tickets have sold out. The ones remaining are for those events which people are not willing to pay £50+ for.

I'm still stunned that anyone is excited by the Olympics. I've watched with moderate interest since Munich '72 and wondered what its like to be the host city. I can honestly say no one i know at work or or family are the least bit interested. It would be fairer to say they can't wait until the circus is over.

As for those who are, I'm happy for you. Just remember every dime you spend will be gratefully received by the corporate bloodsuckers that have reduced this entire event to a money making exercise.

I can't believe that this highly expensive jamboree put on for the "Olympic Family" and Corporations but paid for by the tax payers has much life left in it. Its a cruel joke.

James, I think you are giving an overly negative spin to this story.
Clearly last year an unprecedented 22 million applied to see Bolt at the Olympic Stadium. I doubt even a fraction of them will be interested in weightlifting, beach volleyball, boxing or even basketball morning session in mid week. Particularly if sold at £100+ a pop.

I managed to secure 5 tickets in the first ballot and another 9 tickets in the latest offering. These include gold medal finals in sports I really wanted to watch. I can't count myself as unhappy. Sadly I missed out on anything involving the Olympic stadium, but I will be a volunteer in the Opening Ceremony, so I won't be too disheartened.

I have to say I much prefer the second method of selling the tickets than the original ballot (which seemed very arbitrary and unfair). But I think many people were left very confused. It was not clear, for instance, that although you were limited to 4 tickets per session, and 4 sessions per application, nothing stopped you from applying many times.

Also, remarkably, I applied for 2 tickets in one session, to be told none were available. I reapplied for 1 ticket for the same session and got it, and at the same time a friend secured the same exact ticket. So why not sell 2 together in the first place?

At some stage on Wednesday (1-2pm) the website crashed. All requests returned that the tickets were not available. It would have been better to say "Sorry, website down, try later". Instead I was left with the impression that no tickets AT ALL were left. Only by chance did I try again next day and actually secured a much desired gold medal ticket.

As for football unsold tickets: perhaps a sign that football should not be in the Olympics?

Have a question about this ticket selling webpage, I have no interest in the Olympics, so I haven't visited it. But reading comments on the process, it is either designed & maintained by total incompetents, or worse it's a marketing ( selling ) ploy. I have never come across a retailer or wholesaler webpage that does not have up to date information. I.E. stock availability, quantities, price, offers, alternatives, combined delivery charge & ETA.

The sellers I am talking about are not just multinational corporations, but include small family run companies. It is in fact a simple computerized stock control process. I find it unbelievable that an undertaking of this size, could be unaware of it, or fail to implement it. Perhaps the BBC could get Panorama to check out why :-)

I'm not exactly sure why people aren't buying, but it is probably a combination of the factors other posters have brought up.

I know that we gave up on the first lot simply because I earn very little, and couldn't simply bet away our income on the off-chance a ticket might arrive. We have a set of tickets for one of the women's football semis, at Wembley. We will enjoy it, get a trip to an iconic venue (that will still be iconic after the Olympics is a forgotten memory), and have our 'little bit of the show'. Although the total, including travel, will be our weekly food-bill gone, and that's for the cheapest we could get.

I do accept, as well, that we (taxpayers) will end up paying for the whole shebang. My part of London will be shut down for three days for the cycling - and my church members will struggle to be able to attend as they wish to do.

I tried getting tickets, got stuck in a 30 minute queue fo table tennis!! I eventually got tickets but i never knew how long it took to get 2 tickets, the website also didnt update when it did sell out, i know this because I tried for 3 days before i got the Table tennis tickets. Thats why it sold out, because the website meant that people didn't know which events there were tickets for untill they 'requested' them. WHAT A JOKE

Why are people who have no interest in the Olympics, so they say, commenting on this page? Did they just so happen to stumble across it by accident and thought I don't care about it but I'll comment? Or is it just sour grapes because they couldn't get a ticket and so will slate the existence of it? Also the people who said they didn't get a ticket a first time so didn't bother applying again as they treated you badly. Erm, no it was a random ballet, bit like the lottery really and yes the rich do get a better chance if they applied for more tickets, but it is still random, so if some people got 4 tickets and some people got 0 its still very much random. I would still apply if you really wanted to go, even if you thought the system/treatment was shoddy. Cutting off your nose to spite your face ??!!