The Secret About Beijing Olympics Tickets
I never thought I’d say this, but BOCOG gamed me. That’s right. The Beijing Olympics organizers, whom I long suspected were a bunch of bumbling fools, tricked me. When all of my friends began to receive notifications about when their pre-purchased Olympic tickets would (FINALLY!) be available for pick-up, I began to get nervous. Each person was given a seven-day window to pick up their tickets, after which they would not be allowed to collect them until after July 24. In theory, the idea was to stagger pick-ups.
As all of my friends received their notifications, I decided it was time to take action. My first idea was simply to bluff the Bank of China folks by showing up with all of my information and imply I was told to go down. This seemed like it would be a waste of time because I doubted they’d actually turn them over. Then I decided to call the ticketing folks, who were surprisingly helpful. The woman told me that my tickets had been available since June 16, and would be available, continuously through August 26th. In fact, she informed me that all the ticket holders who had designated my Bank of China as their local branch could pick them up at any point during that 2-month period.
When I went down to the bank, sure enough, they handed over the tickets without a problem. So what does all this mean? The notification system is a big bluff. They want to stagger people picking their tickets up, but it’s much easier to deliver all of them at once to any given bank branch. And the effect is that they completely avoided a ticket run that would have ended in chaos. What am I to make of this baffling turn of events? It almost seems like they know what they’re doing…
or maybe it’s all just a coincidence.
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Glen responds:
Posted: June 24th, 2008 at 9:02 am →
Thank you for posting this. I also have received no formal notifications and haven’t known what to do. As soon as I get passport back, I will go! Did the bank want to see anything besides your passport?
Pappi responds:
Posted: June 24th, 2008 at 10:27 am →
@Glen
My experience was it was pretty straight forward. You should bring a list of events and numbers of tickets to make sure you get the right stuff. (and don’t forget your order number).
Jakob Montrasio responds:
Posted: June 24th, 2008 at 2:30 pm →
I don’t need no damn tickets for my TV. HAH!
stuart responds:
Posted: June 25th, 2008 at 8:52 am →
So, let me get this right: Beijing has lied to the public in order to exercise control over the masses. Sounds very, very familiar.
Seems to work, though.