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A million miss out on 2012 tickets as goodwill dies
Londoners ask if it’s all worthwhile as half of applicants fail to get Olympic tickets
Anger is growing over the allocation of tickets for the 2012 Olympics in London after it was claimed that more than half the people who entered the first ballot failed to win any tickets at all.
Around 1.8 million people applied for the 6.6 million tickets that were on sale, but 55 per cent of them - around a million - missed out.
A second ballot will now be held, and those who did not get anything first time round will have priority. However many events, inlcuding the opening ceremony and the athletics finals, are now sold out and most of the lower priced tickets have gone. That means the unsuccessful applicants will have to watch less popular sports and qualifying events from more expensive seats.
And, as the Telegraph's Olympics editor Jacquelin Magnay points out: "The many hundreds of thousands of people who were only partially successful in getting a handful of their ticket orders could be even worse off."
She explains that anyone who got a ticket of any sort in the initial ballot will now have to wait for a chance to get any more.
"The sheer number of unsuccessful applicants who might now snap up any decent tickets remaining is dispiriting for those who may have only secured two tickets to a minor event in the initial ballot," she writes.
The situation is a precarious one for Locog, the Games organisers, who risk losing the goodwill of the public, particularly in London, where many are angry that they are footing the bill for the Games but cannot get tickets.
One disappointed resident told BBC London News: "We do live in London and it is going to be disruptive, and we were hoping that we would have some benefit from being here."
The ticketing system has attracted criticism from many quarters. Consumer affairs group Which? said the process was "like going into a supermarket, paying in advance for your shopping and then hoping it ends up in your basket when you leave."
Lord Coe of the Locog admitted that the system was "not perfect". But he added: "There is no perfect system. There is no ticket process on a scale like this, this is extraordinary." ·
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I'll bet Seb Coe and his minions know exactly what they'll be watching for no financial outlay - the lot!
The rest of us - money up front for an unknown event: Ripped off and broken Britain at its best.
I hope Seb Coe and minions are proud of their Olympic achievement - it's cost Londoners dearly and we're treated to a swift kick in the nuts as far as attendance is concerned as a venture of thanks. It's even obvious why we won it - no one else wanted it!