Olympic tickets second round sale has shaky start as website crashes

People who registered for first round but missed out get another chance to buy London 2012 tickets The second-chance scramble for seats at next year’s London Olympics has hit fresh trouble when the website selling tickets temporarily crashed. A 10-day first come, first served chance to pick up 2.3 million unsold tickets began at 6 am Friday but immediately hit problems due to a surge in demand. “It was like being at a tube station at rush hour – we had a few people held at the gates,” a spokeswoman for London 2012 said. “But it’s now transacting, people are purchasing tickets.” The second opportunity to buy tickets came as the system for alloting places was branded “a bit of a shambles” by Bradley Wiggins, the three-times Olympic cycle champion. Wiggins, among 1.2 million people who missed out on tickets in a first round ballot, said: “I think, as most of the public feels, it’s a bit of a shambles. “It’s a shame when you know what works so successfully in other Olympic Games, certainly Athens, that they couldn’t implement those ticket systems here.” Jeremy Hunt, the Olympics minister, has defended the process. “I don’t want to be arrogant about this … and say we got everything right at every stage,” he told the Times. “But if you look at the basic principles, the call was to make a lot of tickets available at low cost price and I think that was the right call.” Would-be buyers were using Twitter to vent their frustrations. “Has been processing payment for over an hour now, even though it says not to click back or refresh, that can’t be right can it?” wrote Simon Tipple . London 2012 was flooded with 22 million requests from 1.9 million people when 6.6 million tickets were originally made available to the public. So far 3 million tickets have been sold. The second chance sale includes tickets for 310 sessions including 44 medal events, but 1.7 million of the tickets are for football matches. There have been sell-outs for 21 events including the ceremonies, diving, swimming and tennis. Anyone who got tickets in the first round sale will get another chance to buy from 6am on 8 July to 6pm on 17 July. How to get your Olympic tickets Q: Who can apply? A: Only people who applied in the original sale, from 15 March to April 26, and came away with nothing. The first 10 days of sales in this second round is exclusive to them on a first come, first served basis. Q: How many can I buy? A: You can apply for a maximum of three sessions and six tickets per session for most sports. Football, volleyball and the walking race will have larger limits. Q: What tickets are available? A: There will be 2.3 million tickets on sale covering 310 sessions, including 44 medal events. These include 1.7 million tickets for football. Q: How much will they cost? A: There will be a range of prices and availability. There will be 1.5 million tickets costing £50 or less and more than half of these will cost £20 or less, according to London 2012. Q: When can I apply if I got some tickets in the first round? A: Anyone who got tickets in the first round sale will get another chance to buy from 6am on 8 July to 6pm on 17 July. Q: When can I apply if I have not registered for tickets? A: Your first chance will probably be next year. Olympic tickets Olympic Games 2012 Barry Neild guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 24, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.