The Olympic-sized disappointment

One million people who applied for Olympics tickets have missed out completely. If you're one of them, here's what you should do now...

It’s not often that you find swathes of people crossing their fingers in the hope that a chunk of money is taken out of their bank account. But that’s exactly what’s been happening over the last few weeks as processing has started on Olympics ticket payments.

So with a majority of tickets now allocated, who exactly is going to be making the journey to East London next year to soak up some Olympic action?

Who’s not going?

Well I’m not, that’s for certain. And neither are my family, nor most of my friends. In fact, around one million people (55% of those who applied) who bid in this first ballot, came away empty handed. A couple of lucky people here at lovemoney.com were allocated tickets, but on the whole it still seems that those who applied for a low number of tickets across a small number of events really stood no chance in the ballot. And looking at the figures, it’s hardly surprising.

Approximately 1.8 million people applied for the 6.6 million available tickets. Yet the average number of requests per applicant stood at 11 tickets each; making a total of around 20 million applications.

Among the most popular events were the men’s 100m final, receiving one million applications for just 40,000 seats and the opening ceremony, which was ten times oversubscribed.

As accounts began to be debited last month it emerged that even successful applicants were only being allocated between 10% and 20% of what they bid for.

There were also some high-profile ticketing failures; including the Mayor of London! Yes, Boris Johnson said he was “cheesed off” to be among the one million people who failed to get a single seat. Call me a cynic, but I smell a cunning PR ploy on the part of the Mayor!

Multiple cycling gold medallist Bradley Wiggins also missed out on any tickets, despite being part of Team GB. Competitors are guaranteed two tickets each, but had to apply in the normal way if they wanted any more. Wiggins’ bad luck in the ballot means he’ll have to either leave his wife or one of his two children at home when he competes in London next summer.

The mother of diving star Tom Daley said that she has been allocated tickets, but doesn’t know which events they’re for yet. So it could still turn out that one of Daley’s two brothers will not be able to see him dive for his country in 2012.

But if you haven’t got your hands on any tickets in this first ballot, you may not be quite out of luck yet...

What to do now

Although the Olympic Organising Committee LOCOG confirmed last week that a majority of ticket payments have now been taken, the official end date for cash to be collected from accounts is not until 10 June. However a majority of these late allocations will probably be to applicants who have had their cards initially rejected.

If your card has been denied then LOCOG will contact you and give you a second chance to pay for the tickets. But if the transaction is rejected a second time, your allocation will be redistributed, meaning that there is still a slight chance that some people may yet receive tickets.

However if come Friday you still have had no payment taken, you’ll have to wait until the end of June to apply for the remaining tickets. This second sale will be take place on a first-come, first-served basis with unsuccessful first-round ticket applicants being given priority. But don’t hold out any hope for last-minute 100m sprint final seats, as these second round tickets will only be for less popular events such as handball and hockey.

If you’re still unable to pick up any tickets from this second round of sales then you’ll have to wait until early next year, when successful applicants can start re-selling any unwanted tickets.

Alternatively if you really are desperate to get hold of a ticket, you could head to an overseas ticketing agency. But if you are planning on doing this, make sure you use a genuine and legal vendor; you can find a list of all the Olympic-authorised agencies on the LOCOG website.

So with all this Olympic disappointment, who has got tickets?

Who is going?

Sepp Blatter and co: Despite the public disdain currently felt towards him, FIFA president Sepp Blatter – along with his pals from football’s governing body – will enjoy VIP treatment at the Olympics next year. According to the Sunday Times, 200 rooms have already been booked at a lavish hotel on Park Lane for the group, who will also be spoilt with private chauffeurs and free tickets to events such as the men’s 100m finals and opening ceremony.

Corporate sponsors: Olympic organisers have also admitted that less than half of all seats for showpiece events such as the opening ceremony were made available to the public. A majority of tickets will be made available to corporate sponsors and VIP guests.

Civil servants: 9,000 further tickets will be reserved for the government and given to civil servants and other VIPs. However the government were keen to point out that these seats are not freebies and will be paid for at face value.

Those who could afford to take the risk: LOCOG opted for a random ballot and ‘no-warning payment collection system’ to minimise on speculative bidding; urging people only to apply for tickets they really wanted. However it does seem that, of the applicants who were successful, a majority applied for a lot of tickets across a range of sports.

This points to an inherent unfairness within LOCOG’s system, as those who could afford to take the risk of speculatively applying for huge numbers of tickets were more likely to be successful than those that couldn’t. After all, if the worst did happen and you ended up with more seats than you bargained for, you could still sell them on come 2012, and reclaim your money back.

Take the debt insolvency advisor who applied for £36,000 worth of tickets. He ended up with an £11,000 allocation. Hardly fair when so many people have come away empty handed.

Did you get any?

Were you allocated any Olympics tickets? If so, how many did you apply for? Do you think the ticketing system is fair?

Let us know in the comment box below.

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