91Èȱ¬

Lord Coe is delusional if he seriously thinks the ticket pricing is anywhere near correct. The ticket pricing is much higher than it should be because of the poor organisation and planning of the games leading to the cost being hideously more than it should be.

It's insulting to every single Londoner that is contributing so much to these games to be told that there are cheap tickets available. There are nowhere near enough £20 tickets and the vast majority are being given to schools - rightly or wrongly?

£75 to watch Badminton prelims is a good example, David. It would be nice for you to highlight the fact that people will be able to buy 20 tickets for the Football too - an option the touts will be particularly fond of.

I will apply for every single cheap ticket I can and I expect to achieve absolutely none of them. That way I avoid dissapointment, unless I somehow beat the ridiculous odds and get a ticket to something.

What are the true odds of getting a £20 ticket, I wonder?

I'm on e-mail alerts for tickets - hopefully I can go down to London with the family next year after going to Poland just a month-or-so earlier to witness Euro 2012.

#2 RKW - your reference to Poland reminded me of one thing that is good about the London 2012 Olympics tickets.

At least we will know exactly what we are buying tickets for and we will not be forced to buy extra tickets that we may not actually want. The release of the schedule and pricing is commendable - albeit with prices that I find utterly disgusting.

Compare this to the nasty folk at UEFA and their Euro 2012 ticketing process, in which they demand you buy your tickets before you have a clue who has qualified, who plays in which Group and against who, in which Country - it's completely and utterly bonkers. I know there's 'follow your team' option, but that does force you to watch at least 3 games - is that really fair? Or is it fairer to have 3 times the number of individual fans watching their team for 1 game?

Every ticket for preliminary events should be a "fair" price, half should be available for £30 or less and if they want to have any kind of "legacy", then 10% of all tickets should be free to kids.

I think 6 million will disappear LIKE THAT. All the most popular sports finals will walk out the door. The early morning swimming will attract those who can go and then go on to work. The athletics mornings will attract children on holiday.

The other 2 million may or may not walk out the door. I don't know. That's where you get a feel for how experimental the British people are and how flexible the pricing is. I'd spend a tenner to watch some handball, but I'm not sure I'd risk £40 on a sport I don't know.

I guess there will still be 12 months to sell the remainder after the first wave.........

Very dissapointed that for lots of the events such as opening and closing ceremonies, all swimming medal sessions, all diving medal sessions, all cycling medal sessions and many key athletics medal events you can only apply for 4 tickets. Who do I leave out from my wife, 16 yr old, 14 yr old and 10 yr old? Could Lord Coe let me know who he would choose to leave at home?

The top tickets will all go to the big companys who will sponser most of the games ,for me i hope to get good tickets for every boxing match

For the 100m final...."Cheaper tickets for the event, seen as the highlight of the games, will cost £200."

Somebody is taking the wee.

What's the point inviting the worlds athletes if you're not inviting your own public?

Cost of a new velodrome even though there's one in Manchester - £90m

WHY GO AT ALL ,YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SEE IT ON TV ,WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY IN THE MIDDLE OF A RECESSION.

It cost me a Hornby train set (which I sold for £13) to go the Rome Olympics in 1960 with the school by coach. One day we saw the athletics 1500m, another the long jump final; we saw the boxing finals including Cassius Clay in the final of the light heavy weight; we saw gymnastics, swimming, football (E Europe countries!). P{lus where we camped in the centre of Rome there was a fair where I won a bottle of Martini ( I was 15).

You can watch the Olympics on TV every 4 years. The opportunity to actually be there in your own country... you get that no more than once. That's why you go...

Hope they do reduce prices for any unsold tickets for some of the less popular sports though, we want to show the world as many full stadiums as possible.

Well I like to go.

I love to see the opening and closing ceremonies!

I THINK LORD COE SHOULD THINK ABOUT PEOPLE WHO DO NOT LIVE IN LONDON WHO
WISH TO GO TO THE GAMES AS IT IS NOT JUST THE LONDON GAMES IT IS UNITED
KINGDOM , SO TO TRAVEL TO LONDON FROM FROM SCOLAND OR NORTHEN IRELAND
PLUS ACCOMODATION,MEALS TRANSPORT AND TICKETS IS WAY BEYOND THE GENERAL
PUBLIC FOR ONE PERSON THIS WOULD BE MORE THAN ONE MONTHS WAGES, ALSO WHAT HAS THE REST OF U.K GOT OR GETTING OUT OF THIS AND IF THEY SELL THE STADIUM TO SOMEONE ELSE AFTER THE GAMES INSTEAD OF A WHITE ELEPHANT LIKE THE DOME SHOULD THE MONEY NOT GO BACK TO THE PUBLIC PURSE FROM WHERE IT CAME FROM , AS MANY PEOPLE CAN NOT AFFORD BECAUSE OF THE WAY THE COUNTRY IS, IT IS ALRIGHT FOR THEM THEY HAVE A LARGE INCOME AND HAVE MADE MONEY OUT OF THIS ,GIVE AND PUT THE MONEY THAT THEY THINK THEY WILL MAKE BACK TO THE PEOPLE WHO CAN HARDLY AFFORD A T.V. LICENCE AND A DECENT MEAL IN THIS COUNTRY , COME ON LORD COE GET UP AND LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD WHEN YOU HAVE TO WORK FOR WHAT YOU HAVE NOT A HAND OUT

The most expensive ticket at Beijing Olympics - £73

For those saying it is a "once in a lifetime", instead of £725 for a final ticket, just wait 4 years and fly out to the one over there - it'll be cheaper

Ticket prices can be as high as they like,I will not be buying any of them,at any price.Tv will be even more unbearable,thank goodness for my computer,I can then ignore the Con-Olympics as much as possible.

We need high prices to maintain Corporate interest and help pay for the Games. People who are complaining would probably rather go to Benidorm or the Costa Del Sol anyway.

Oh deary me, those prices are going to fall flat on their face. They're living in fantasy land.

Release of ticket information and schedule a massive anticlimax and disappointment! The majority of key sessions in the pool, velodrome and athletics stadium are limited to four tickets. With three teenage children - who have been looking forward to seeing medals won since the games were awarded - we are now faced with the realisation that it is impossible to attend these events as a family.
Now in a complete quandry about whether to bother considering that ticket prices for heats and preliminaries are incredibly expensive. The organising committee should hang its head in shame for ruining numerous families' dreams.

Similar to 14 (except I have a working caps lock key) I am more bothered about those of us in the UK that want to go. Tickets themselves might be "reasonably" priced but then you've got transport to the games (TOCs will hike prices) and hotels in London (expensive at the best of times!) to add to the expense.

It's going to be full because there are always some people who'll buy it but the average citizen of the UK has no chance of seeing anything worthwhile. I wonder if people North of Watford were surveyed? Unlikely since the media thinks England ends North of Watford

The pricing for most events for the Olympics needs to be reconsidered by the Olympic Committee. It is a little absurd that the cheapest tickets for the main events is not than less 50GBP.

There are other absurdities in the pricing strategy. The triathalon held in Hyde Park requires a 20GBP admission fee,this is not for seating, but for general admission. The organisers kindly let us know that we can view parts of the cycling route for the triathalon for free...really now, considering you have 20 km of cycling to do and some of it has to be outside Hyde Park.

The pricing strategists haven't learnt any lessons from the Beijing Olympics or the Commonwealth Games where prices to athletics heats and preliminary events were priced so high that we witnessed empty stands in many venues.

The Olympics are the premier competition for a few sports like athletics, gymnastics, swimming, fencing and it's a great opportunity to see the best in the world compete at their peak against each other. The current pricing scheme virtually refuses entry to events to students, families and others who cannot afford to imagine spending 50 pounds on a single day for an event. The Olympics in London is a great opportunity kids across the UK, but especially London, to get really excited and dream to emulate these athletes. What's the point if your parents cannot afford to take you to see Tom Daley diving or Jessica Ennis win gold!!

Lord Coe must seriously reconsider whether he plans to retrieve his 500 million sales revenue through corporate hospitality or genuinely have an all-inclusive Olympics that will be remembered for the enthusiasm and participation of every Londoner.

The prices might be steep, but I'm under no illusions that they won't sell. A lot of good Premier League football tickets cost a least £50, and people pay many times more than that to see Take That in concert. Yes, the Olympics are expensive, but they're not wildly out of kilter with other sporting or entertainment events. I was always perfectly resigned that 3 or 4 various sessions across a few different sports was going to set me back a couple of hundred. Sad, but given a chance, I'll still cough up.

And to Post 15, comparisons to Beijing are pretty pointless unless you also consider the average wage of Londoners compared to Beijing folk.

I love all this talk in the media about how the British public will react to ticket prices...

... it hasn't dawned on most of the 91Èȱ¬ or some newspapers that actually (amazing news this) most British people DON'T live in London! The real cost of attending the Olympics is not in the tickets - its in the accommodation and travel costs.

We'll now have months of being told how well sales are going followed by two weeks of half empty venues next year for every preliminary and qualifying event.

Seriously overpriced, Legacy obviously isn't a word that looked at when considering ticket prices. I'm sure families will be scared off by the high prices which make even top premiership club tickets look cheap. I'm even astounded by the fact theres an option to say you'll pay more than the listed ticket prices.

I know they need to make money and attempt to make a profit but these pricing schemes seem wrong. There will likely never be an olympic games in our country while most of us are alive. I'd have thought that simple fact along would have encouraged them to open the gates cheaply to those the games could inspire.

Instead it will be whoever has the fattest wallet gets in and yes thats basically exactly what the 2012 website promotes.

And to Post 15, comparisons to Beijing are pretty pointless unless you also consider the average wage of Londoners compared to Beijing folk.

==

Why not try comparing the average london wage to any other wage in the UK? For four people, start factoring in £150 each for a train ticket (yes that's the correct price), £90 a night for a hotel room (may get away with sharing one between 4, but likely 2 rooms needed), £8 food and drink inside the venue (going by wembley prices - venues that will almost certainly prevent you from taking anything in with you cos of "security reasons")

But the "london wage" doesn't have to cover all that, so I guess this is all irrelevant

==
Lord Coe must seriously reconsider whether he plans to retrieve his 500 million sales revenue through corporate hospitality or genuinely have an all-inclusive Olympics that will be remembered for the enthusiasm and participation of every Londoner.
==

All about london, olympics only need the londoners eh?

Dear friends from Britain's parochial backwaters;

The people of London, who have paid through the nose for the Olympics to be held in close proximity to you, did so in the reasonable expectation that people would come from far and wide to see the Games and would spend money in London as they do so. If you can't afford to come, then watch the Games on TV. Please, don't ask for further subsidy from Londoners to help you afford to attend.

@ Post 14: LONDON AND THE SOUTH EAST ARE THE ONLY SELF-FINANCING REGIONS OF THE UK, SO FAR AS THE PUBLIC PURSE IS CONCERNED. REST ASSURED YOU HAVE PAID FOR NOTHING - TAX CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE REGIONS ARE ALWAYS LESS THAN THE PUBLIC FUNDS THEY RECEIVE, EVEN DISCOUNTING THE SINECURE CULTURE OF PUBLIC SECTOR JOB PROVISION NORTH OF WATFORD. LONDONERS HAVE PAID FOR THESE GAMES AND WILL PRICE TICKETS AND ACCOMMODATION ACCORDINGLY. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

Stephen-P - you need to check up on the figures if you think Londoners have paid for the Olympics. Money has been taken from Lottery for a start, so there's proof you are wrong straight away. But then what would expect from gullible short-sighted Londoners?

We have spent a to total of £181.00 for 4 nights camping with 3 days of entertainment by 100 bands and acts for two of us, without one penny of subsidy. I wonder which is better value for money?

Another drawback to paying so much, is that you will probably end up sitting next to someone like Stephen_p

How the funding has worked:

%64 from Central Government
%23 from The National Lottery
%13 from the London Development agency - considering the regeneration of East London, that's quite reasonable.

Even the so called 'cheap' tickets of £20 are still rather expensive. As a family of 4, for us to attend an event in London, with travel and accommodation, we would be looking at £500 upwards. We live in Manchester and so was hoping to see some of the football at Old Trafford. However, even this has been over-priced. The stadium holds 76,000, I guarantee it wont be full as I would imagine the £20 tickets are the ones up in the clouds of the 3rd tier. I was hoping to get a family ticket of £50 say for 4 people to see the football. The early rounds of Estonia vs Bukino Faso wont attract much interest. I also suspect that the GB team will play all their games in London, along with Brazil, Argentina, etc.

i am sure when the Commonwealth Games came to manchester, there were plenty of cheap tickets available. The main stadium will be full for all the finals but it will be the rich that have the privalage to see them.

Part of me hopes that ticket sales are so slow that they have to reduce them to avoid embarrasment.

@ Richard and Kapnag

The Lottery? I can't think of any other examples of where people pay for a service (that is, the infinitessimal chance that they might escape their miserable lives) and then believe that the money they have paid is "theirs".

To be clear then - 77% funded via compulsory contributions from Londoners. As mentioned, London and the South East are the only net contributors to the public purse. You can't claim a share of the public contribution when you take out more than you put in. And 23% representing the triumph of hope over mathematics. I'll accept the point that the vast majority of Lottery funding probably doesn't originate from London - unless you count the indirect redistribution of wealth.

The funding is irrelevant and it's such a petty argument to start in this thread. They spent LOADS more than they promised us. Want to start an argument with someone, knock on Seb Coe's door. Who cares if Londoners pay more? We earn more! We live here and WILL benefit more! We bid for the thing and then attempted, and epically failed, to paint it as a British Olympics. It's a London Olympics. The hideous shopping centre at Stratford IS the Legacy, combined with a Championship football ground for West Ham.

We can all be naive and argue otherwise, but perhaps, 18 months from the start, it's time to look at the facts and stop accepting all the rubbish we are being fed? Like it or not, it's a Great British tradition to take it and not do a single thing about it!

The tickets are too expensive for the average family in Britain. This is a cast iron fact. Look at the average wage. Look at the average family size. Look at the average travel distance to London. Average hotel costs too.

Find me someone that thinks £150 per ticket to watch Beach Volleyball is good value? Granted, you could get a ticket in the deepest, darkest corner of the stand for £20, but how over subscribed are those tickets going to be? Any advances on 1 in 20,000? The chances of securing one for your entire family? Keep dreaming people...

How about £420 to watch a half evening session of Athletics? That's per ticket by the way, not a family ticket. Can someone find me a family that has a spare £1600 floating about? It's not like interest rates are encouraging us to save, is it?! Would you seriously spend £1600 on a day trip to London anyway? Not a two week all expenses paid trip to Orlando with your family?! Harry Potter land, Disneyland, Sea World and Universal Studios all included!

The only reasonable pricing that I can see is the football - £20, £30 and £40. Presumably that's because the stadiums have such a massive capacity, they have reduced the price based on full capacity.

What an absolute disgrace.

Who is speaking up for the average British family? Who represents them at THEIR Olympics?

London has had far more public money spent on it than anything else in developing infrastructure that has created growth. How much capital gains do you think came out of the redevelopment of the Docklands area?

But I guess it's all just londoners digging deeper into their pockets and simply working harder than the rest of the country.

I love my sport but I'm not sure I love it as much as Lord Coe expects me and my family to (I have 3 children). Might have to settle for the BIG screens, which will be a huge let down for the kids.

Firstly the odds are against us getting tickets because this is an open application to not just the UK but our European friends as well (& the ticket touts).

They talk of legacy, my daughter is a keen swimmer and belongs to a well run club. The club will see no preferential ticket allocation for their hard work in promoting the sport and developing young people in society. I wait and see how many club swimmers get to see their heroes in the Olympic pool. By not using the club structure there is a huge gap between the domestic sports and the Olympic dream.

One last thought how many VIP seats are the general public subsidising - quite a few I bet. Get you wallet out and buy your own tickets Lord Coe - you've no doubt been well paid.

The ticket prices are sickening. I would like to attend the first Saturday morning of athletics for example. Assuming the 'cheap' £20 and £40 tickets fly, we are expected to part with £65-£150 for the remaining tickets?
Upto £50 for handball preliminaries and £75 for badminton.
Tickets for preliminary football are more expensive than my Premier League club (Aston Villa)
I fear it will be like Euro 96 all over again, empty seats everywhere with people priced out. A shame.

The ticket prices are a joke, £50 to watch even the heats of events from bad seats? Upward of a ton to watch the final of anything even halfway popular?

How many billion quid have we spent? To hold a sporting event that is priced so the vast majority of the host nations families couldn't afford to watch it live, some legacy.

I totally agree with Chad (post 36). The ticket prices are absurd. My excitement at the prospect of being able to go to a once in a lifetime sporting event like the Olympics has been derailed by the arrogant and greedy ticket pricing policy decided by Locog.

Locog obviously have rose tinted spectacles on and expect the economy to make a miraculous recovery and people to have disposable income to pay-off the Barclaycard bill or pay exorbitant interest charges.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The ticket prices reflect how the world works these days...all money spent has to be recouped otherwise it wouldn't have been "invested" in the first place...there is no thought about putting the money in as investment for individuals and children to play sport in the future, only as investment in terms of monetary gains for the companies that put it up...and as for comparing ticket prices for other sports and concerts, remember that those people get paid from those prices, whereas olympic atheletes will not be...all those ticket prices go into the hands of shareholders

For me anything above , say , a couple of quid is more than enough to pay for a ticket to an event .Then there's the expense of traveling to and from the venue , food etc ? And then there;s the fact that many evenys intrude into the working week . We;re not all peoplew with endless leisure ti idle away our days ? Do the organisers imagine we're all on City of London Bankers salaries and bonuses ?
And remember U.K. Citizens that whether you like it or not you're the oned paying for these Olympic in some form whether you want to or not ? Did anyone ask you ? I thought not !
On second thoughts please count me out .

Would Lord Coe like to define affordable prices please?
Most people North of Watford will also have to fund travel costs and an overnight stay, we are so we are told in a recession. From the ticket charges I have seen to date, my faith has been restored in "rip off Britain"

What did you all expect - Olympics on the cheap? From the time 'those who know best' starting banging on about bringing the games to UK (for this read London so the whole UK would pay to regenerate East London) it was clear that we the public would pay through the nose for everything. I do not understand what there is to get excited about. Wherever they are held the same sports take place in the same venues - running tracks, swimming pools etc and these are all basically the same - only the packaging is different.

What a waste of time, money and national effort.

Why any right thinking person would pay through the nose to travel to London, only to be ripped off at every turn, crowded into some arena, risk the pick pockets and scam merchants, pay well over the odds for sub standard food and tatty memorabilia, is totally beyond comprehension.

If you really must watch the primadonnas perform, buy a large TV and watch in the comfort of your home. It's going to be cheaper than taking the average family to the games, and when it's all over you will still have a decent TV, and, in all probability, a fatter wallet.

Well said Pete(44).

Perhaps London will do for large screen HD TV's what the 1972 Games did for colour TV - improve sales. This will help the retailers but not the economy as most of the money will go overseas.

The Olympic nightmare just gets worse!!

Trying to find this blog wandered into the 91Èȱ¬ Olympic site and wished I had not. Talk about American razzmatazz. What happened to British understatement?

I'm really upset about the way these tickets are being sold. I really want to tkae my kids to an evening session in the athletics stadium and see some olympic champions - I don't mind which session but I can only afford one. If I bid for 1 session - I'll probably miss out, but I can't bid for more in case I get more than 1.

Can someone tell me how I'm supposed to decide which tickets to apply for at any venue when there are no venue plans available? Easy to know the cheapest have the worst view and the most expensive have the best view, but assessing if the mid price tickets are a better bet is impossible ! Maybe the assumption is Joe Public can only afford the cheap ones and Corporates will just buy the most expensive ones, so the question is academic ?! PS Reference earlier comments about overall prices, my top category ticket for the Mens 100m final in Athens cost 80 euros !