2012 Olympic Athletics Days - which one?

robinph

Just got emailed this story:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/11/mcdonalds-olympics-chips

exiledelbows

For those of you waiting on Dutch tickets, James Pearce (BBC olympics correspondent) said on Twitter the other day he's been in touch with them and they're being shipped in the next week.

trihead

Yeah the official site has tickets for some events still and seems to continue to add tickets daily as people return unwanted ones.

The french site has released more tickets also for quite a few different events.

trihead;)

Pisco Sour

Right guys, what's the damage so far?

I'll go first. Just calculated that I've spent a little over $1000 Australian dollars on tickets so far! Holy mother of God!!!! :eek:

exiledelbows

Apologies if this has been posted before but the best way to keep track of ticket releases is this site right here: http://www.os-site-tracker.com/examples.php

Basically for 8 euro or so you can sign up to a tracker email which tells you when new tickets are loaded onto the various sites. However, on the 'examples' section of the site the information is given out almost instantaneously for free.

Keep an eye on the codes you're after (AT is Athletics, BX is Boxing) then get onto the sites. The website is in Holland so the times are CET. This is how I got alerted to the sales last week, picked up some cheap tennis and table tennis on LOCOG.

robinph

Pisco Sour wrote: »

Right guys, what's the damage so far?

I'll go first. Just calculated that I've spent a little over $1000 Australian dollars on tickets so far! Holy mother of God!!!! :eek:

In euros it works out at €1335 total I think for a total of 19 individual tickets across 6 events and 7 different sessions.

Cost in petrol to drive up and down the M4 is going to be pretty high as well by the end of this.

Pisco Sour

robinph wrote: »

In euros it works out at €1335 total I think for a total of 19 individual tickets across 6 events and 7 different sessions.

Cost in petrol to drive up and down the M4 is going to be pretty high as well by the end of this.

Haha, would take that ahead of 1650 euro for flights, and 4 weeks of lost earnings!

19 tickets is a huge chunk. So far I have 2 athletics (1 morning, 1 evening), 2 boxing (women's semi, and final), 1 indoor volleyball, 1 beach volleyball and 1 handball. Then there's the free events: Both triathlons, all 3 walks, and the womens marathon. I'll miss the men's marathon.

robinph

Which beach volleyball you going to?

Pisco Sour

robinph wrote: »

Which beach volleyball you going to?

Its on Sat 4th August from 1pm to 2.50pm. Its a men's round of 16 match and a women's round of 16 (beach volleyball games must be short!).

It's nice to have tickets to a few other sports to get an overall flavour of the games. Any tickets from now on though that I will be looking for will be strictly athletics.

Did a quick tot of the Irish athletes I'll get to see:

Aileen Morrisson
Gavin Noble
Rob Heffernan x2
Brendan Boyce
Colin Griffin
Olive Loughnane
Laura Reynolds
Linda Byrne
Ava Hutchinson
Catriona Jennings
Alistair Cragg
Paul Hession (if he qualifies for the semi final)
Katie Taylor x2 (touch wood)

That's about 20% of the entire team. Not too bad. The flag will get plenty of use. Would love to get a ticket for the friday evening to support our relay team.

RacoonQueen

Irish flags and bunting all on sale in supervalu. Think I'll adorn my house and car with bunting and flags for the olympics. That'll show my neighbours for the crap they had hanging out of their houses for the footy. :cool:

Truman Burbank

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Irish flags and bunting all on sale in supervalu. Think I'll adorn my house and car with bunting and flags for the olympics. That'll show my neighbours for the crap they had hanging out of their houses for the footy. :cool:

Just borrow theirs and put the savings towards an opening-cermony street party or the Christmas lights or a 50" HD ready LCD TV and leave the blinds up

RayCun

from the guardian

There are no seating plans of Olympic venues that show which areas will be allocated to which ticket categories, writes Simon Burnton. Fans have just had to take it on trust that if they spent £725 for a top-priced ticket to the men's 100m final, it would be better than a £50 cheap one. But this, it has turned out, is not a safe assumption.

"Take the Aquatics Centre (see map). For swimming events, when the smaller diving pool will not be used, it would seem obvious that the blocks highest up at the diving board end (408 and 406) are the worst in the house. Logically, these should be filled with holders of the cheapest tickets. But people who spend £185 for Category B seats are finding themselves in these blocks, while people spending £50 on Category D seats are finding themselves much better placed.

This seems to be because, counterintuitively, Locog have ranked seats according to the row they are in, rather than their position relative to the action. So in the Aquatics Centre a seat in row 45 costs £185 for a finals night, one on row 55 costs £95, and one on row 65 costs £50, irrespective of whether they are in the dismally-placed block 408 or the evidently superior block 411. This also explains why some have paid £725 for the men's 100m final and been allocated a seat near the front but on the wrong side of the stadium, while others have spent £50 and have a perfect view of the key action, from a little further back.

It would seem to me that if you are charging so much for tickets, and when some people are spending many times more than others, you have a responsibility to allocate seats that fairly and sensibly reflect the cost of securing them. Locog's plans seem bizarre, ill-thought-through and - writing as someone who has spent £380 for four seats in Block 408 for swimming finals - offensive."

Pisco Sour

RayCun wrote: »

from the guardian

There are no seating plans of Olympic venues that show which areas will be allocated to which ticket categories, writes Simon Burnton. Fans have just had to take it on trust that if they spent £725 for a top-priced ticket to the men's 100m final, it would be better than a £50 cheap one. But this, it has turned out, is not a safe assumption.

"Take the Aquatics Centre (see map). For swimming events, when the smaller diving pool will not be used, it would seem obvious that the blocks highest up at the diving board end (408 and 406) are the worst in the house. Logically, these should be filled with holders of the cheapest tickets. But people who spend £185 for Category B seats are finding themselves in these blocks, while people spending £50 on Category D seats are finding themselves much better placed.

This seems to be because, counterintuitively, Locog have ranked seats according to the row they are in, rather than their position relative to the action. So in the Aquatics Centre a seat in row 45 costs £185 for a finals night, one on row 55 costs £95, and one on row 65 costs £50, irrespective of whether they are in the dismally-placed block 408 or the evidently superior block 411. This also explains why some have paid £725 for the men's 100m final and been allocated a seat near the front but on the wrong side of the stadium, while others have spent £50 and have a perfect view of the key action, from a little further back.

It would seem to me that if you are charging so much for tickets, and when some people are spending many times more than others, you have a responsibility to allocate seats that fairly and sensibly reflect the cost of securing them. Locog's plans seem bizarre, ill-thought-through and - writing as someone who has spent £380 for four seats in Block 408 for swimming finals - offensive."

Jaysus that's worrying given the fact I spent a fortune on a Cat C ticket this morning!!

RayCun

I suppose the 100m final is on at the same time as the hammer and long jump final, and a bunch of middle distance races. So trackside is still trackside.

MacGyver007

Pisco Sour wrote: »

Jaysus that's worrying given the fact I spent a fortune on a Cat C ticket this morning!!

I downloaded the stadium seating plan before I started looking for tickets from here:
http://www.london2012.com/mm/Document/Documents/Venue/01/24/17/14/KDVENUESTAAthletics_Neutral.pdf

At least when you are looking (and if you are very lucky get offered them!), you will know roughly where they are located and can decide to either buy them or take your chances on better ones.

glassmullan

If someone is going to go a even session only to see the 100m final ... and complain that they have a **** seat for 10 seconds of the tiem , while they have a great seat for the other 2 hours and 30 mins well..... I hope they sneeze and miss the 100m final

Brianderunner

Yeah i was quite shocked to see our Saturday evening tickets (which were £50 and the cheapest category) were halfway down the backstraight, albeit high up.

Compare this to my bosses Cat B ticket (cost £295) which is about 30 rows closer to the front but halfway down the backstraight also. It just doesnt add up, doesnt take a genius to see a lot of people are being screwed over here by bad planning from LOCOG.

@glasmullen, the 100m in the stadium is pretty sh!t if your not up the homestraight tbh. If i was paying £725 for a Cat AA ticket, i would expect finish line or very near it.

Truman Burbank

Brianderunner wrote: »

Yeah i was quite shocked to see our Saturday evening tickets (which were £50 and the cheapest category) were halfway down the backstraight, albeit high up.

Compare this to my bosses Cat B ticket (cost £295) which is about 30 rows closer to the front but halfway down the backstraight also. It just doesnt add up, doesnt take a genius to see a lot of people are being screwed over here by bad planning from LOCOG.

@glasmullen, the 100m in the stadium is pretty sh!t if your not up the homestraight tbh. If i was paying £725 for a Cat AA ticket, i would expect finish line or very near it.

Got C tickets for every night in Athens (A to D). For the 100m final, the athletes were running towards us. We were in the same tier, anywhere in the stadium, on a given night. London seating is nothing new. It's the prices that are.

Brianderunner

Truman Burbank wrote: »

Got C tickets for every night in Athens (A to D). For the 100m final, the athletes were running towards us. We were in the same tier, anywhere in the stadium, on a given night. London seating is nothing new. It's the prices that are.

Yeah i had €70 and €90 tickets for Kelly Holmes 800m night and El guerrouj 1500m night in Athens and they were fairly identical to each other.

I'll never forget, a whole load of mexicans left after Ana Guevara's 400m final, just before El G's moment of history and Isinbayeva got the WR in the pole vault, makes you wonder.

Truman Burbank

Brianderunner wrote: »

Yeah i had €70 and €90 tickets for Kelly Holmes 800m night and El guerrouj 1500m night in Athens and they were fairly identical to each other.

I'll never forget, a whole load of mexicans left after Ana Guevara's 400m final, just before El G's moment of history and Isinbayeva got the WR in the pole vault, makes you wonder.

.......my companion that evening stood halfway down the stairwell for all of that 5000 metres, watching it on the bigscreen, cos they didn't want to have to wait the....... what 10 minutes? ....... to get on the train. Please don't reply. There are no words.

robinph

Still no sign of my tickets from the Dutch site.

Brianderunner

robinph wrote: »

Still no sign of my tickets from the Dutch site.

I wouldnt worry too much. My first shipment arrived on Saturday, which i ordered back in November. I emailed them at os2012@atpi.com and they replied saying when they had dispatched them.

The only thing which worries me a little is that nobody had to sign for them, they just threw them in my letterbox Some £700 worth of tickets.

The travel passes were included btw

robinph

I didnt' get the "spectator" guides with the tickets I got from the French site, just the ticket and the travel card. The ones from the UK site had a whole lot more gubbins shipped out with them as well. All the deliveries have been signed for coming either via Postman Pat in a van or FedEx.

trihead

Those spectator guides for each of the sports can be downloaded from the official site [ pdf] . Don't have the exact link but came them recently when looking for maps of some of the courses.

trihead

1. go to http://www.london2012.com/sports/
2. Click on chosen sport
3. Scroll down to bottom of the page.
4. Link to guide is in right hand corner

G-Money

Brianderunner wrote: »

I wouldnt worry too much. My first shipment arrived on Saturday, which i ordered back in November. I emailed them at os2012@atpi.com and they replied saying when they had dispatched them.

The only thing which worries me a little is that nobody had to sign for them, they just threw them in my letterbox Some £700 worth of tickets.

The travel passes were included btw

Did they arrive via An Post or a courier of some description?

Brianderunner

G-Money wrote: »

Did they arrive via An Post or a courier of some description?

I'm in London. Royal mail label on it that says "signature required" but it looks like the old "peel off the label and throw it in the letterbox and sign it yourself approach" from the mailman, which goes on far more than you would think based on my work experience in an post. Did it myself tbh

Happy enough that i got the tickets, i guess thats all that matters.

robinph

Brianderunner wrote: »

I'm in London. Royal mail label on it that says "signature required" but it looks like the old "peel off the label and throw it in the letterbox and sign it yourself approach" from the mailman, which goes on far more than you would think based on my work experience in an post. Did it myself tbh

Happy enough that i got the tickets, i guess thats all that matters.

That's a bit of a crappy delivery method for €50, and they have probably not actually been sent from Holland then. Best value for money so far seem to be the French tickets which for €28 got to go all the way to the US and back again so are very well travelled.

Brianderunner

robinph wrote: »

That's a bit of a crappy delivery method for €50, and they have probably not actually been sent from Holland then. Best value for money so far seem to be the French tickets which for €28 got to go all the way to the US and back again so are very well travelled.

They seemed to be sent from Holland via Royal Mail. There's a handwritten post it note saying "enjoy the games" in Dutch, as well as a few leaflets in dutch. It all came in a white plastic envelope.

Quite surprised none of you have recieved yours yet. That said i'm waiting on 2 athletics tickets from them too. I rang their office and emailed enquiring so maybe they rushed my order? Who knows.

robinph

Do you have their number?

Otherwise, I'm heading over to Holland for a day next week so might go and knock on their door.