olympics-2012 | Andy Roberts

London Mayor Boris Johnson brands Olympics 2012 ticketing process ‘an oddity’ Locog gives itself until 24 June to inform successful applicantsThis article titled “London Olympic organisers defend ‘peculiar’ ticket payment process” was written by Owen Gibson, for The Guardian on Wednesday 18th May 2011 16.51 UTCLondon Olympic organisers including Lord Coe have been forced to defend their ticketing process in the wake of criticism from consumer groups and after the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, called it “peculiar”.Consumer groups including Which? have criticised the fact that money started coming out of applicant’s accounts this week but Locog has given itself until 24 June to inform them which tickets they have received, if any.Coe denied the policy was an attempt to avoid a scenario where customers may cancel their orders if they had only received tickets for less popular events. He argued instead it was an attempt to create the breathing space to solve any problems with payments.“The important thing here is, let’s not be coy or naive about, we want to make sure that people have the funds to be able to do this. We’re talking £500m here, this is not chopped liver,” said Coe. “We want to make sure people have funds available. In the event they don’t, we don’t want to rip up that application on the first day.”Which? has said the ordering process forced people to take “a gamble with their finances”. Johnson told a parliamentary committee that taking payment before emailing successful applicants was “a bit peculiar” and “an administrative oddity”, though he added it was “not the end of the world”.Locog’s head of ticketing, Paul Williamson, said up to 25% of ticket payments may not go through first time due to lost cards, technical problems or because there were insufficient funds, adding an extra layer of complexity to a system that had 6.6 million tickets on sale across 648 sessions at five price points and numerous venues. He said the ticketing process had been well trailed and that he had no regrets about the strategy.“We can’t tell people what tickets they’ve got until we’ve charged their card. We need to make sure it’s a fully paid for order before we inform people. That’s sensible business practice,” said Williamson. “The second reason is the sheer scale of this enterprise. More than 1.8 million applied and more than 20 million tickets were applied for. The sheer scale of it is why it takes time. If we told people the day after their credit card went through, we’d be telling people across three or four weeks. You might be told and your next door neighbour wouldn’t.”He said that by the middle of next week Locog expected to have charged well over half of all payments. The emails to inform applicants whether they were successful will all go out on the same day.“We’re trying to be fair to people. No one is going to be allocated a ticket they haven’t applied for. On average, people have applied for 12 tickets worth a total of £500. People are applying for tickets they’ve chosen,” said Williamson.He also defended the fact that Locog has not informed buyers where they will be sitting, effectively asking them to take on trust that more expensive tickets will have better views.“The higher price points are closer to the action and more central, the lower price points are further away and higher up. That’s quite normal in major events where you’re selling tickets a year beforehand,” said Williamson, drawing comparison with other events such as Wimbledon and the FA Cup final that sold tickets in price bands.In June, anyone who didn’t get any tickets at all will get “first bite at the second chance cherry”, said Williamson, followed by those who didn’t get everything they applied for. All the remaining tickets will go back on general sale in November. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLondon Olympic organisers defend ‘peculiar’ ticket payment processRelated posts:London Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame routeWill the 2012 Olympics be a sell out?London 2012: Ten best of the web

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