Priced out of Olympic sport?
If I gave you £200 and told you to treat the family to a day out, how would you spend it?
Let's say we're talking about two children and two adults. That would get you four very good seats at , and it more than covers a family day out at , including travel costs. You could probably tack on a slap-up meal.
If you chipped in with some of your own small change, you could even take your posse to two home games at .
But that cash would not have stretched to good seats at at London's O2 Arena on either Saturday or Sunday of last week.
Can that be right? Can Olympic sports in the UK afford ticket prices that their supporters can't?
Emptying the vault - fans paid £60 each for top seats on the lower tier
If you wanted four of the best seats available at the World Gymnastics on Saturday or Sunday, you would have paid £60 per person.
There was no sign on of any discount for children. So no matter the ages involved, four tickets cost £240 - plus that most hilarious of stealth taxes, the booking fee - for four hours of gymnastics.
There were cheaper seats. "Silver" tickets put you at the end of the arena or above the "gold" seats but, at £45 each, that is still £180 for four. "Bronze" tickets, far up in the rafters, were a slightly more comfortable £30 each.
Earlier in the week you could have paid between £10 and £22 each for a full 12 hours of gymnastics, during qualifying. The finest gymnasts in the world cost you less than £2 an hour on those days, instead of up to £20 an hour at the weekend.
But how are you expected to get out of work, or weasel the children out of school, to go on a weekday?
Throughout our week-long coverage of the World Championships, I had plenty of people get in touch with me, face to face and via email, about this.
"It may be a World Championships but prices are too high, especially if you're going to take the family," wrote Gareth.
"The tickets are over-priced. If it was cheaper, I'd be back today," Nicole told me on Sunday, having been to Saturday's finals.
"Way too expensive - I would have loved to have gone this week, but couldn't afford it," added Jessica.
In the wake of medals for Brits Beth Tweddle and Daniel Keatings, the Worlds have been hailed as a success. So I raised these concerns with Brian Stocks, of British Gymnastics.
"We had the biggest audience ever for a gymnastics event in this country, but comments about the ticket pricing are reasonable," he admitted.
"The event cost £3m to stage, and it will struggle to break even, so the rationale behind the ticket prices was trying to meet that cost.
"London is not the cheapest of cities in which to run things and, to be blunt, you wouldn't want to run a World Championships coming out of this recession."
Fans from gymnastics clubs were offered discounted tickets to the World Championships
Ticket prices are set by AEG, the group which operates , which had a capacity of 12,000 for this event. Stocks told me AEG had a policy "they thought was fair".
He added: "The finals were expensive - in the expensive seats. But there were special arrangements quite early on for members of gymnastics associations to buy tickets cheaply."
That's fine if you're already a member of an association and keen to attend, but a World Championships in London is the best opportunity a sport like gymnastics will get to bring first-time fans through the door.
Arena operators say the final three days of the competition performed well at the box office, with 10,000 tickets sold for each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and another 10,000 spread between the preceding three days.
"Sales were good when we launched a year ago and steady throughout the year," AEG's Lucy Ellison told me.
"Tuesday and Thursday (the days on which only the men competed, Thursday being when Keatings won a silver medal in the all-around) weren't as good, but still did OK. We were thrilled with the way it went."
AEG add that various deals had been available through newspapers and other promoters although, to my knowledge, none appeared on the official website of the event. (, which at the time of writing shows the page as it appeared on the Friday of the Worlds, doesn't show any.)
But those figures suggest Keatings' silver, unprecedented for any British male gymnast, was watched by at best a half-empty arena.
Away from the tickets, Stocks is as thrilled as you'd expect for a man whose organisation now boasts a in Tweddle and a in Keatings.
"To have gymnastics appearing ahead of football on the 91Èȱ¬ was quite interesting, and now we need help from commercial organisations to work with us," he said.
"Nobody wants to support us if we don't get the results, but now we've positioned ourselves as a sport which can deliver in 2012."
I saw every twist, tumble, and dismount of the six-day competition, and Britain's gymnasts are certainly capable of Olympic medals.
But it worries me that other Olympic sports might look at the World Gymnastics, see a successful example to follow, and price families with a casual interest out of the market.
I'm not sure the priority should be getting these sports into their London 2012 venues - we've got test events in 2011 for that. The emphasis now should be on getting fans interested before the Olympics arrives.
Gymnastics has another chance with the European Championships in Birmingham next year, and hopefully prices will be lower than for the Worlds.
After all, is it better to sell one ticket at £60, or two at £30? Do you hold a major event at a prestigious venue, attracting column inches but forcing supporters to shoulder some of the cost, or hold it somewhere else, risk losing some media coverage, and bring prices down?
Lord Coe, Chairman of the London 2012 organising committee, needs to make sure the right balance is struck in three years' time. He told 91Èȱ¬ Sport he's "working through the ticketing strategy" for events like this at the Olympics.
"We want to make as many of those tickets as accessibly-priced as possible," he said. "It's not just the price of the tickets, it's making sure people can come from outside London.
"For a mother and father and two or three kids from Sheffield, we've got to make that accessible as well. We realise that this is a very serious thing to get right and we will."
If you were at the Worlds, I'd be interested to know what you thought. What are ticket prices like for similar events in other sports you follow, and what were your overall impressions of the Worlds? If you didn't go along, were the prices a factor in your decision?
Update, 1702 BST: I'd like to express my condolences to the family of Yury Ryazanov, the Russian gymnast who claimed a bronze medal last week, . It was a shock to hear the news having had the pleasure of seeing him perform so well only days ago, and it puts things like ticket prices in perspective.
I'm Ollie, and I cover sports which don't normally hit the headlines - from archery to ice hockey. I'll be reporting on all Olympic sports (and some others!) in the run-up to London 2012. For regular updates and links, .
Comment number 1.
At 20th Oct 2009, DavidGins wrote:I'd be asking why it cost £3 million to stage an athletics competition? Something has gone wrong there! It can't cost that much to get the competitors and equipment together. This isn't a high tech sport. It should have come in at a lot less than that!
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Comment number 2.
At 20th Oct 2009, JoDan wrote:London 2012 will have a real challenge to ensure ticket prices allow minority sports to be seen by good crowds. All swimming finals and athletics will sell out regardless.
I was in Beijing, Athens and Sydney and often Hockey, Fencing and Table tennis amongst other sports were almost played to empty crowds in the early rounds.
These type of events should either be charged at £1 or so to get families in and big crowds.
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Comment number 3.
At 20th Oct 2009, lee fett wrote:Well said Ollie, the focus should be on getting as many people interested in these sports as possible before 2012. As usual though the emphasis is on making as much money as possible. My girlfriend and some friends went on Friday evening to watch the action and they could only afford the cheap seats. They certainly weren't impressed. They could see what was happening although not that clearly but what made it worse was that as there are flags hanging all round the hall they couldn't see the TV screens to see the replays of what had happened.
Its just sad to see an event that could do with as much interest and coverage as it can get screw it up by trying to rip people off.
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Comment number 4.
At 20th Oct 2009, RickyM wrote:I really wanted to go to a gymnastics event for the first time, and went to the website to find a pair of tickets last month. I was even ready to pay the £35 for each silver ticket, but after seeing the price rise on the website with a "service charge" (10%) a "delivery fee" (£2,75) and even a £2 fee for printing the tickets on your own printer, I was so incensed that said nah, I will just watch it on TV.
Luckily, the week before the event, they sarted offering 2-for-1 deals (presumably sales were not going great, unsurprisingly), which just about persuaded me, and went to the men's all-round final. I was worth it at that price, and I must say I had a great evening out.
I hope that in time for 2012, they ban that practice of ticket surcharges, which can put off the fans even more that an up-front high price.
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Comment number 5.
At 20th Oct 2009, _Morba wrote:There should have been more evening tv coverage also, when kids are home from school but not in bed.
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Comment number 6.
At 20th Oct 2009, KickAssAndGiggle wrote:One hopes
"After all, is it better to sell one ticket at £60, or two at £30?"
is a rhetorical question, as the answer is pretty obvious: if you can fill the stadium at £60, you of course should. In fact, if you can fill 51% of the seats at £60, you of course should.
We live in a society where companies (such as AEG) are OBLIGED to put shareholder interests above all others, and therefore the question answers itself.
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Comment number 7.
At 20th Oct 2009, No1_Sports_Pundit wrote:Very good blog, and this is exactly the problem with watching live sports these days. A sport like gymnastics should be striving to get as many through the door as possible, building a fan base with an exciting, well supported event. Other sports certainly fall foul of too high ticket prices as well, which is why football crowds now frequently boo their own team. Lowering ticket prices should be what sporting organisers concentrate on in the near future.
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Comment number 8.
At 20th Oct 2009, Ollie Williams wrote:sublimesuperspur - I remember looking at the top tier of seats with all those flags, and wondering if they would have a detrimental effect on people trying to watch from there.
That's the kind of thing which ought to have been spotted, but Brian Stocks did make the point to me that, as an amateur association which holds an event like this maybe once every decade or two, they were heading into a venue more used to swapping seamlessly from Britney one night to Beyonce the next.
What I think he means by that is: British Gymnastics and the O2 are not the most natural bedfellows, and may have missed a few tricks first time around. He said lessons have been learned.
As far as the £3m figure goes (as raised by DavidGins), Mr Stocks also said British Gymnastics had emerged more "commercially savvy" and had worked out ways of reducing costs without compromising what the athletes needed to do. So hopefully, in future, things will improve.
points out that . To be honest I'm not overly impressed with them, either. There is only one price listed for each day as opposed to the range of three on offer for the O2, although tickets for the top finals in 2010 come in at around £45, equivalent to a "silver" ticket last week.
But again, no mention on the official site of discounts for children, family bookings, or any incentives arranged with gym clubs. To the outsider, it makes it look like a lot of money.
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Comment number 9.
At 20th Oct 2009, carlstig wrote:Hi Ollie,
Great blog on the World Championships. It's my daughter Abbie who appears in your picture with the Union Jack t-shirt. My wife and daughter went to the Worlds as part of City Of Worcester Gymn club. We estimate that the weekend with hotels, travel costs and 2 tickets each for both days cost in the region of £500. That is a serious dent in our family budget and has taken me working 10 weeks of overtime at £50 a time to save up for. I agree with you completely that ordinary fans are being priced out of sport-but what a weekend!!! Carl
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Comment number 10.
At 20th Oct 2009, lordSUPERFRED wrote:Rip off Britain Ollie get used to it , the games will be put together on a shoestring in global sporting terms and punters will be charged the earth to attend in venues that have stood for years or will be demolished or downsized as soon as Seb waves goodby and gives the flag to Rio .
The infastructure will not stand the strain I travel around east London reguarly and I can tell you we are way off pace with what was on offer in Barcelona , Athens , Atlanta, let alone Bejing .
In what will supposed to be a celebration of this countrys sporting prowess I can see nothing but embarresment in terms of infastructure , pricing and legacy, we have not got on to the subject of hotel prices , how much will the worlds public be fleeced for those ?
It is only 33 months away yet what we have seen so far is an embarresment sadly , what is highlighted here will be the norm in 2012
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Comment number 11.
At 20th Oct 2009, hainba wrote:Good blog on a problem that faces all parents who want their children to witness live sport. But this was held at an international venue run by a PLC with shareholders.
BUT maybe the 91Èȱ¬ should take this further in the run-up to 2012.
1. Who will be pricing the 2012 tickets?
2. Who will be selling them, they must've allocated the ticketing contract by now.
3. What commission and additional ticket delivery fees are to be applied?
As an Olympic & publicly funded event these problems should be avoided.
But then there is always the GRAVY train...
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Comment number 12.
At 20th Oct 2009, real_deal78 wrote:In fairness to British Gymnastics, they run fantastic ticketing initiatives at their own events. You can take kids to a friendly international (GB v Romania, GB v USA etc) for 3.50. Under-16s usually get in free at the Men's British Champs. The Glasgow Grand Prix World Cup event has great offers for kids and clubs....
But BG as an organisation simply cannot afford stage an event as big as Worlds on its own. It would be hugely irresponsible to take the risk on it. So it has no option but to sell out to the AEGs. And let's not forget AEG has a Michael Jackson-sized hole in its own coffers to fill.
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Comment number 13.
At 20th Oct 2009, MarktheHorn wrote:As usual these organisations just think about the money and trying to make the most profit rather than the fans of many sports...
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Comment number 14.
At 20th Oct 2009, swsquires wrote:The costs for a large number of sporting events in England are always too much. When my brother was in South Africa during the first World T20 cricket tournament he paid something like £1.50 to watch two matches in the latter stages. In England watching one match later in the tournament cost something like £80. I'm sure the cost of living in England isn't that much more than South Africa.
I was very keen to attend the gymnastics having never seen it in person, but the prices were just too much. Add in travel to the arena, the excessive parking charges (should you drive), food/drinks, etc. and the cost per head is huge. Let us not forget that the price per ticket isn't the only revenue source for the O2 from people going to events.
There are some decent prices around though. Next week I'll be at the World Cup Track Cycling in Manchester - a bargain at £15 per ticket.
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Comment number 15.
At 20th Oct 2009, PeteinSQ wrote:All I can add to this debate is that I really hope that they don't pursue a similar pricing strategy for the olympics in 2012. People already feel like they've paid for the games through taxation so they won't be very happy to pay £50 each to watch sports that they may not have an immediate interest in (Table Tennis for example) but which people would still like to go to to get some of the olympic atmosphere.
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Comment number 16.
At 20th Oct 2009, thesefeetdontdance wrote:"London" prices. usual killing, no wonder us Northerners are sceptical about anything London.
Sadly, the word "sport" is no longer really appropriate in this day and age when the only thing that motivates is money,its all "business" now.
As with football, the philosophy seems to be fill 1 seat at 60 and have 1 empty rather than filling the thing. At the end of the day though, if the paying customer is prepared to pay these people will charge what they like. That is the sad fact of sport 21st century
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Comment number 17.
At 20th Oct 2009, ChloeDP wrote:Gymnastics has always been an affordable sport, a lot more inexpensive than my dance classes and pals horse riding lessons as a young girl. You don't have to be from a wealthy background to train to a high standard in gymnastics, as you do in some other sports. It then seems unfair to charge such high prices for budding gymnasts to witness their heroes in action. You flagged this up during the week Ollie, when I was there during qualifying.
We live locally but couldn't afford the good seats, so up in the gods we were, happy with how many hours gym we had seen for £10. But there were so many unfilled seats down in the stalls it seemed such a shame. The flags were a design fault, blocking scoreboards, and after 12 hours under the bright lights we had some slight eye strain. For the Olympics, I would really like the opportunity to be closer to the action, and preferably for it to be affordable!
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Comment number 18.
At 20th Oct 2009, rileyzachary wrote:# 16 - London prices are killing Londoners as well.
I really don't understand why the tickets cost so much, regarding the maths above, surely selling out the venue at £45 for the whole place makes more sense than having it half full at £60.
Unfortunatley Gymnastics is a minority sport at best and really could have done with much better organisation, I appreciate that they haven't really done organisation at this level but really missed the boat on this one!
Hopefully prices will be better for the Olympics and discounts available for school groups and families.
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Comment number 19.
At 20th Oct 2009, Mikasa83 wrote:I went and watched The england badminton team play Japan last Friday and OK it was only a friendly but at £12 for 5 hours of great badminton it seems much more reasonable, and only 6 rows back.
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Comment number 20.
At 20th Oct 2009, bobc8t wrote:I have traveled to many gymnastics competitions at home and abroad as I am a big fan of the British gymnasts. I have to say these have been the most expensive championship I have been to, when it should have been the cheapest as it was on home soil.
For a family of four I paid £844 for silver tickets to watch all of the events and thats before the hotel, parking and underground fees - let alone the £8.50 burger and chips and £4.50 beer.
I think it is the first time the hotel has cost me less than the venue as I managed to grab a family room at the Travelodge for £29 a night, what a bargain and proves businesses can still make money when they reduce the cost.
But what annoyed me more than anything else was when I had to book the tickets via the website for each day individually, I could not put each day into a shopping basket and pay for all of the tickets under one transaction. So for each day I had to pay the booking fee and postal charges separately, increasing the cost again and there were no discounts for children or pensioners either.
I can't imagine how much it cost the foreign spectators when you have to include air fares.
The atmosphere was fantastic at the O2 with two GB medals as well, but it could have been better. Friday was a complete sell out and the atmosphere for the two GB girls was deafening, surely if we priced it more reasonably and filled the arena on each day then we may have got a few more of the British Gymnasts into the other finals as they certainly have the talent and can compete with the best.
The Brits are coming.....
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Comment number 21.
At 20th Oct 2009, Gupton68 wrote:A very accurate and perceptive blog. As a subscriber to the 2012 website I was offered a family deal of 3 tickets for 4 but I'm afraid even at the 'discounted' price of £180 this was ridiculously over the top and beyond the reach of most families that I know.
I would love to have taken my little girls and maybe even manage to get them fired up with a little desire to do it themselves (only if they want to of course, I'm no pushy parent!) but at this price this was never going to happen. If London 2012 adopts the same kind of pricing structure I have to wonder why I was so excited back on the 6th of July 2005 when the news came through from Singapore.
The London games were sold to the IOC on the promise of being for the young, on this evidence the young won't be able to enjoy it too much sadly.
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Comment number 22.
At 21st Oct 2009, ravenmorpheus2k wrote:I am not the slightest bit surprised by this.
When you start putting a price on something such as sport is ceases to be sport.
It's a business, we've seen it happen with Football, we've seen it happen with Motorsports.
Welcome to the world of Capitalism Gymnastics/Olympic sport fans.
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Comment number 23.
At 21st Oct 2009, ravenmorpheus2k wrote:Oh and another thing, and I'm hoping my previous comment isn't removed, as this proabbly won't make sense -
Whilst people are still willing to pay the prices the people resonsible will continue to charge them.
If no-one pays, the price comes down.
Think about it a little and then tell me if you still want to pay the price for seeing what amounts to very little for quite a lot of money.
And yes I'm referring to the likes of parentofagymnast who complain about paying £844 for a Gymnastics event. You still paid for it though didn't you...
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Comment number 24.
At 21st Oct 2009, rjaggar wrote:There's a very simple question here for Lord Coe:
'You've said that your aim is and always will be: 'Getting more young people into sport'.
Well, mate, if you look at the economy you'll see more and more young people living at or around poverty levels thanks to 'free market economies' (more like casinos funded by the taxpayer but there we are) and it's precisely there where the obesity is highest. Don't take exercise any more.
Don't go to watch footie so much either: can't afford it. You bringing two kids up on £20k a year? Won't be spending £1200 on two seasons at the footie, will you? Rugby was always the toffs game, so most won't watch that either. Even if they could afford it.
1. Where's the Saturday afternoon game to go to after the Saturday morning match with the school/club?
2. Where's the place where they and their dad/mum can afford it??
Oh, it's on the telly isn't it.
Funny thing, didn't I just read that kids sitting in front of the telly and PC turned into fat, unhealthy gits??
Think about it.
You're going about turning the middle classes and above into sports-mad people.
And leaving the poorer to waste away.
It's what the logical conclusion of overall policy is.
Is that what you're about?
If so, say so at the general election. Shout it from the rooftops. And say that your mates Hague and Cameron thinks it's absolutely the way to go.
Friend.
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Comment number 25.
At 21st Oct 2009, danhaines wrote:Im also concerned about ticket prices for the London Olympics i would really like to take my Autistic son (who at the time of writing is 3 and a half)as im sure He would absolutely love the experience. However we're currently living in the Czech Republic where im working as an English teacher. Prices for flights and accomodation should be no problem given that i have over two years to save up (we would stay with my parents in Kent and travel up probably by train on the day/days. But the cost and availability of tickets??!!! Sadly i just don't think we're going to make it but as his Dad i would sell my soul to give him that once in a lifetime opportunity. Just maybe.........................
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Comment number 26.
At 21st Oct 2009, Ophiuchus wrote:I've read somewhere Andrew Castle got bulk of tickets from 91Èȱ¬... I'm wonderin' what make them so special not to pay...?
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Comment number 27.
At 21st Oct 2009, Adam7511 wrote:With all this negativity about ticket pricing can I just point out that I have just bought my tickets for the European Gymnastics in Birmingham next year at a bargain £20 each for the weekends competition. I think thats the top price as well and there is a reduction for kids too unlike what Olly mentioned in his blog for the worlds. Much more sensible ticket pricing if you ask me
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Comment number 28.
At 21st Oct 2009, hainba wrote:Ollie looks like you were ahead of the game on this subject now the UK is talking about downsizing the home team!
May I suggest to the 91Èȱ¬ Sports editor that this is a can of worms of national proportions and one worth pursuing in the public interest.
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Comment number 29.
At 21st Oct 2009, bobc8t wrote:Ravenmorpheus2k, in response to me complaining about ticket prices and then paying £844 to watch the gymnastics at the o2.
I had no option but to pay the £844 to watch my son pick up the first gymnastics all around silver medal in british history. I am the father of Daniel Keatings and unlike other sports, gymnastics is not flush with money and the parents of our top Gymnasts do not get complimentary tickets or even get them at a reduce rate.
I am not wealthy and the money other parents spend on holidays we spend on supporting our children. We have no other option but to pay the inflated prices to support our children, my complaint was about the prices at the O2 if you look at the prices for the European championships next year the prices are very reasonable at £10 a ticket or £6 for children and OAP's and yes I will be there and yes I have managed to bag another room in the travelodge at £29 a night.
The BOA seriously needs to look at ticket prices for London 2012 and more so the amount that will be set aside for big businesses, it is always the real fans that miss out.
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Comment number 30.
At 24th Oct 2009, ravenmorpheus2k wrote:"29. At 1:26pm on 21 Oct 2009, parentofagymnast wrote:
Ravenmorpheus2k, in response to me complaining about ticket prices and then paying £844 to watch the gymnastics at the o2.
I had no option but to pay the £844 to watch my son pick up the first gymnastics all around silver medal in british history. I am the father of Daniel Keatings and unlike other sports, gymnastics is not flush with money and the parents of our top Gymnasts do not get complimentary tickets or even get them at a reduce rate.
I am not wealthy and the money other parents spend on holidays we spend on supporting our children. We have no other option but to pay the inflated prices to support our children, my complaint was about the prices at the O2 if you look at the prices for the European championships next year the prices are very reasonable at £10 a ticket or £6 for children and OAP's and yes I will be there and yes I have managed to bag another room in the travelodge at £29 a night.
The BOA seriously needs to look at ticket prices for London 2012 and more so the amount that will be set aside for big businesses, it is always the real fans that miss out."
I'm sorry but I have news for you - if you can afford to support your children in their career by shelling out the best part of £900 every once in a while then you are indeed wealthy, certainly compared to many parents out there in the real world.
I do however agree that the BOA need to look at ticket pricing, but as I said as long as people are prepared to pay the prices, whether they have a choice or not, the prices and the way they tickets are allocated will not change.
We in this country need to take a stand instead of just rolling over and saying, "oh well I don't have a choice", or "I don't mind".
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Comment number 31.
At 7th Aug 2010, Frank wrote:I really wanted to go to a gymnastics event for the first time, and went to the website to find a pair of tickets last month.I went and watched The england badminton team play Japan last Friday and OK it was only a friendly but at £12 for 5 hours of great badminton it seems much more reasonable, and only 6 rows back.
========
Frank
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Comment number 32.
At 7th Aug 2010, mihaelsts wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 33.
At 3rd Oct 2010, Gaz wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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