Olympic tickets – an update

In April, I applied for Olympic tickets in fifteen separate sessions. In the subsequent ballot, held a few weeks ago, I got allocated exactly zero tickets! In total, 20 million applications were made for the 6.6 million tickets. This left most of the 1.8 million people who applied ticketless.

All was not lost however. Last Friday, the second round opened for the remaining tickets. People, like me, that had not got any tickets in the first round were given the first chance of getting these. The down side, of course, was that none of the tickets for popular events, like athletics, were left. Also, the second round ticket window opened at 6am!

So, at 5.30am on Friday I got up and logged onto my computer. Along with thousands of other people, I rushed through the application process, applying for tickets in table tennis, beach volleyball and hockey. I finished my application by 6.03am. By that time, the website had ground to a halt under the weight of all the traffic. Thinking that I had failed to apply, I spent a further two hours trying, with no luck, to refresh my application. I was worried that I would miss out again.

Yesterday, I finally received an e-mail saying I had been successful in applying for all three events! I am particularly looking forward to the beach volleyball which is to be held at Horse Guards Parade in the evening and the hockey which will allow access to the olympic park.