Tickets for London 2012 Olympics available over the counter in Spain but hardly anyone wants them

[richard]

Hundreds of top tickets for the 2012 Olympics can be bought in Spanish shops because the country has chosen to sell its London 2012 allocation over the counter instead of through a website.

The decision by its National Olympic Committee was designed to ensure that most of the tickets go to Spanish residents.

But only a handful have been sold since they went on sale in December at 20 Fnac music and book stores.

It means tickets which Britons are desperate to get hold of, including basketball, beach volleyball and gymnastics, are gathering dust on the Continent.

The farce will re-ignite criticism of the Olympics ticketing operation, which has included a controversial UK ballot and a website blighted by technical problems.

The Daily Mail visited a Fnac store in Madrid and was offered tickets for 12 sports, 11 of which are unavailable in the UK after being snapped up last year.

The paper was able to buy seats for rhythmic gymnastics, basketball, beach volleyball, fencing and canoe slalom, held at five venues in the capital next summer. This included the cheapest seats, which were the first to sell out in Britain.

Tickets for track cycling – one of the most popular events – were also said to be available in Spain up until a couple of weeks ago.

Staff at the Madrid Fnac said the Mail was only the third customer in a month to ask about Olympics tickets. The other two both bought seats for basketball only.

One manager said: ‘There is no interest here. Maybe nearer the time people in Spain will think about it and want some, but I am not so sure.’

The shop had sold so few Olympics tickets that the first two sales assistants that the Mail approached did not even know they were available in-store. This was echoed across the 20 Fnac stores in Spain.

In Malaga, only a handful of tickets had been sold, while Marbella had not sold any.

Every National Olympic Committee that applies for tickets for its own country is entitled to sell them through whatever method they wish to.

Apart from Spain, all EU countries have chosen to sell their allocation through websites, such as cosport.com.

Any EU resident can apply for these and many Britons have enjoyed more success through websites in other European countries than the UK’s own system.

Limited tickets are still available from European websites. However, they are allowed to charge up to 20 per cent extra, as well as hefty postage and administration fees.

Fnac in Malaga blamed Spain’s economic woes for the lack of sales. The tickets come with an 18 per cent mark-up on the UK price but stay within the 20 per cent limit for re-sellers which is set by organisers Locog.

They can then be collected in person from London, between June and July.

The tickets on offer included Category A seats for women’s beach volleyball, offering the best views from Horse Guards Parade. There were also some Category A seats for basketball and gymnastics.

Tickets for some of these events will be offered to the British public in April, when the remaining one million tickets go on sale.

However, UK residents will have to compete with fans from the rest of Europe, who are also entitled to buy these over the internet.

On Monday, Locog admitted its website to allow members of the public to buy and sell tickets directly from each other had failed. It was the latest in a string of technical problems with the Ticketmaster website, which has struggled to cope with the demand.

A Locog spokesman said: ‘Given the huge demand which saw 21million applications in the first round alone, using shops to sell tickets in the UK would not have been an appropriate channel.

‘Overseas sales are done in ways which suit that market. Tickets returned by client groups, such as National Olympic Committees, will go into Locog’s contingency allocation which will go on sale from April.’

Fnac declined to comment.


Source
By Louise Eccles
Home | Mail Online