My Blog
My Blog
An Olympic Effort
Yesterday the ticket prices for the Olympic games were announced and were met, in some parts of our office, with a little consternation. For my part I believe that Paul Williamson (Head of Ticketing for London 2012) and the rest of the organising committee have got it just about right.
Yes, there will be many people who cannot afford the £725 top price ticket for the final of the 100m or the £2,012 for the best seats at the Opening Ceremony - but over £500 million needs to be generated from ticket sales and that can’t be achieved by selling all tickets at £20. As a London taxpayer I am pleased that they have properly recognised the market value of these blue ribband, once in a lifetime events and have attempted to recoup some of the cost of staging the games.
The other benefit of the high prices for the best seats at the high profile events, is that they allow the organisers to provide more seats at accessible prices. The cheapest tickets for the opening ceremony are an amazingly low £20.12 - a fantastic bargain. Overall two thirds of the 8.8 million tickets for the games will be priced at under £50 with 2.5 million tickets at or below £20. These are accessible prices and for people unable to afford these prices they will still be able to enjoy the Olympic experience at the free events such as the marathon through the city’s streets. Children under 16 will only have to pay their age at a third of the available sessions and at the same sessions seniors will only pay £16. All ticket prices include free public transport across London.
It is an incredibly difficult to job to balance the demand for tickets, the need to raise money and the desire for accessible pricing and I think that the organisers have done a fantastic job.
With the pricing established the next major challenge will be ensuring that the events are full. The British public have an enormous appetite for sport so I am in no doubt that there will be no difficult selling the 6.6 million tickets being made available to them, the real problem will be ensuring that the 25% of tickets set aside for broadcasters, sponsors, international sporting federations and corporate hospitality are used. I only hope that they are able to establish some sort of standby system whereby if tickets aren’t used by a certain time on the day, member of the public will be given access to them.
One of the inevitable problems that surrounds any high demand ticketing event is the issue of touting. There is legislation banning the resale of Olympic tickets - but with the maximum fine only set at £1,000 many touts will view that as just an occupational hazard and a fine as a business cost. There will be an official exchange site where members of the public who cannot use their tickets will be able to resell them at face value which will hopefully cut off one supply of tickets onto the black market, but ultimately the only way to stop the touts will be if people refuse to buy from them.
The London Olympics in 2012 will be a great event and one that I hope the whole nation will be proud of. I, for one, have already registered to purchase tickets when they go on sale in March 2011 - I don’t think I will be forking out £725 to watch eight men run for ten seconds but I definitely want to be a part of the whole experience and if that means I only manage to catch a bit of archery at Lords cricket ground, then so be it.
Saturday, 16 October 2010