The ticket buying is over for the Olympics, but could there be trouble in store for a lot of people with the so called Olympic Ticket Bubble?
Due to the way the tickets will be allocated via the lottery system, people were encouraged to buy across the event range so perhaps as well as the opening ceremony and 100 metres final, they might include the 400 metres 2nd round or some event that’s less likely to be over subscribed.
Problem 1: It seems quite a lot of people have been hedging their bets by buying large numbers of tickets right across the board just to have a chance to see anything at the London Olympics, and if they win a lot of those tickets it could be rather a financial headache.
Problem 2: The second problem is likely to be that many will have paid with Visa debit cards as Mastercard was not allowed, so sometime in May they will have to assume their bank account will take a dip, but by how much is completely unknown and even the date it will happen is between fairly wide date ranges.
Olympic Lotteries: The Olympic ticket lottery was used in China and Greece, but there ticket applicants were told what they had received before being charged and could cancel the tickets.
The London Olympic Organising Committee wanted to avoid this as it risks empty seats in less popular events which is bad for their TV coverage and proving that the London Olympics are “popular”.
Less than courteous: One can fully understand why they wouldn’t let people cancel the tickets, but it would seem much more courteous to at least tell people that they will owe £x on this date rather than people finding out when the unauthorised overdraft letter falls through the door.
Plus, if they know what you’ve got by May, why on earth does it then take them another month to actually tell you?
Second ticket lottery in 2012: Those with tickets they don’t want will be able to off-load them at least in theory sometime in 2012 at the official London Olympic ticket exchange, but only if other people want to buy them. That’s an awful lot of interest to be paying on your Visa card in the meantime for those wise enough to use credit cards.
Time will tell what this does, but with 6 million tickets to be sold, there is a suspicion amongst financial experts that an awful lot of bank accounts are going to hit the red during May.
Evening Standard mode disengaged. ;-)
London Links:
Tourist attractions around London
London hotel accommodation
