Olympic Ticket Confusion, Part Deux
The internets has made buying Olympic tickets one of the easiest things in the world. Before the internets, a series of tubes that connect people to one another, it would have been impossible to sell tickets to sporting events. This is why events prior to 1996 had no people in attendance.
For the Beijing Games, an ingenious system has been implemented, that only a fool would not be able to understand. First, there was phase one. I applaud the committee for their choice of simple title. People who were either citizens of, or residents in, China could register during the month of July for tickets. You could put down 10 first choices and 10 second choices, but no event could be listed twice in any combination. In order to apply you needed either a foreign credit card or a Bank of China (OFFICIAL OLYMPIC SPONSOR!) account.
If you were a foreigner or reasonably educated/young Chinese person, these instructions and requirements were not too difficult. If you were a local Beijinger who had never made a purchase online before, this all may have been a bit daunting. Not to mention the fact that a lot of Chinese people applied for the Opening Ceremony and nothing else, not realizing this basically wiped out their chance at getting anything.
After about a month an email was sent to your Spam box informing you of the tickets you won.
Phase two involved 10 minutes of tickets sales and a crashed site. This has been widely covered.
Phase two, redux, allowed foreigners to buy through a company called “Cosport” (OFFICIAL WEBSITE FOR OLYMPIC TICKETS AND ACCOMMODATIONS SALES!!) Given that mailing ticket to your home cost 35 Dollars (that’s 2 Euros) they don’t exactly seem like they are worthy of the IOC’s pristine reputation. Anyway, there is a notice that Visa (OFFICiAL OLYMPIC SPONSOR!!!) is the ‘preferred’ card. However, after spending half an hour filling out a form, and being delighted apparently to have secured early round men’s basketball tickets, I discovered that ‘preferred’ actually means ‘only one accepted’, despite the fact that there is a drop-down bar for credit card type. Priceless!
By the time I re-ordered with a Visa (OFFICIAL CREDIT CARD OF OLYMPIC BUREAUCRACY!!!!) in hand, no more men’s basketball tickets were available. Fortunately I have some preliminary round softball and baseball tickets. Cost: $20 for 4 tickets (half a Euro).
In total I got 20 tickets yesterday. Which sounds pretty good, except each time I found something available my inner monologue went something like, “Now which one is the modern pentathlon again? I always get it confused with the traditional pentathlon.” (FYI- Three of the sports are shooting, riding a horse, and swimming. If they combined these and had people on horses shooting at swimmers I may have purchased tickets. More info on this fantastic sport here.)
So today I went back online to find out what was going on with the second stage for people living in China, because I really want to go to a men’s basketball game. Here is the crystal clear explanation on the website (apologies for the length):
BOCOG Ticketing Centre Public Notification on Ticket Sales of Public who registered at Bank of China Ticket Outlets or Ticketing Call Centre on Oct 30th, 2007
Beijing Olympic Ticketing Centre decided that when ticket sales re-start again, all ticket applicants who registered true personal ID information at BOC outlets or Ticketing Call Centre on Oct 30th would be treated as priority customers and their ticket application would be accepted and processed as priority application. The detailed arrangement is announced as below:
1. During the Nov 24th and Nov 26th, Bank of China will notify each ticket applicant who registered their true personal ID information and contact phone numbers at BOC ticket outlet on Oct 30th; Ticketing Call Centre will notify each ticket applicants who registered their true personal ID information and contact phone number at Ticketing Call Centre on Oct 30th.
2. During the Nov 27th and Nov 30th, ticket applicants who have received notification from BOC can go the appointed BOC outlets to purchase tickets. Please be advised that applicants must bring valid personal ID documents to complete the verification firstly. Proxy is accepted, both applicant’s ID documents and agent’s ID documents are required.
3. Beijing Olympic call center staff will contact each ticket applicants who registered true personal ID information and contact phone numbers on Oct 30th in the sequence of registration order from Nov 17th, and accept and process their ticket application accordingly.
So, uh, can people who didn’t register ‘true personal ID information’ (OFFICIAL FORM OF PERSONAL ID FOR THE BEIJING OLYMPICS!!!!!) on October 30th still apply? Does that phrase imply large nubers of people were lying when they registered? Does this mean that they are personally calling each registrant?
Did anyone realize that almost none of the events are even anywhere convenient for where visitors might be staying? I feel like this design should be its own post, but we don’t need to overload on Olympic stuff so far out.
In a nutshell, there are games in Tianjian (city), Shenyang (city), Qingdao (city), Shanghai, Hong Kong. If you’re wondering these are not exactly clustered. PLUS, dozens of events in Beijing are in Wukesong, in the far west/southwest, whereas most hotels are in the east,and the Olympic village is in the north (see map).
So who’s up to watch a first-round softball game of Peru and Namibia with me? I chock full of tickets.
Share This
Conrad responds:
Posted: November 29th, 2007 at 7:11 pm →
I’ve just barely gotten through the first part of your post, but had to give immediate kudos to the ’series of tubes’ reference. (Is this a meme everyone knows about already? I’ve been removed from pop culture since coming here.)
Nonetheless, awesome.
ERIC responds:
Posted: November 29th, 2007 at 10:12 pm →
i felt a pinch.
they were so conceited trying to make the olympics look good. they never realize that its not so much the birdnest as much as the services.
why bother anyways.
i remember seeing interviews on TV of parisians the day after the lost to london for the ‘12 olympics. so many people didnt even know it was going on.
maybe china should learn to be more apathetic.