Embarrassing: Military now being used to fill empty seats at London Olympics

[Hobbes!!!]

I remember this was a story in 2008 too. They were more concerned about the way it looked though so they filled it with schoolkids. I think even some of our non-Canada curling matches were filled with schoolkids.

Reminds me of when I was in elementary and I got to see a bunch of Grizzlies games for free with my whole family. People would come to our school, ask if we could attend. If we said yes, they'd just hand us as many tickets as we asked for, within reason.

[RUPERTKBD]

What the hell does the Summit Series have to do with the Olympics?

[RUPERTKBD]

I remember this was a story in 2008 too. They were more concerned about the way it looked though so they filled it with schoolkids. I think even some of our non-Canada curling matches were filled with schoolkids.

Reminds me of when I was in elementary and I got to see a bunch of Grizzlies games for free with my whole family. People would come to our school, ask if we could attend. If we said yes, they'd just hand us as many tickets as we asked for, within reason.

[Buddhas Hand]

[Hobbes!!!]

2008? Curling? Did you mean 2010, maybe?

[GLASSJAW]

One of the most douchey things I have ever read, in all my 29 years on this planet.

[Buddhas Hand]

You really need to learn how to voice an opinion without falling back on ridiculous hyperbole

[Tearloch7]

You really need to learn how to voice an opinion without falling back on ridiculous hyperbole

[GLASSJAW]

I thought he was quite eloquent myself .

[Buddhas Hand]

Birds of a feather

[Kamero89]

Start another thread if you don't like the Olympics, and bring up valid points. It is just pathetic trolling people because you have nothing else to do

[Hobbes!!!]

you bet and proud of it .

[Buddhas Hand]

Start another thread if you don't like the Olympics, and bring up valid points. It is just pathetic trolling people because you have nothing else to do

[kyledude]

Why do we have trolls derailing this thread? This is about empty seats at the Olympics.

[Dittohead]

womens beach volley ball is sold out.

[GLASSJAW]

Nevermind!

[kyledude]

womens beach volley ball is sold out.

[EmployeeoftheMonth]

Last I checked the Summit Series was in 1972.. would you agree that's before 1988? Or are you going to accuse me again of not doing my research?

[key2thecup]

Organizers Struggle to Solve London Olympic Ticketing Fiasco

Rows of empty seats at events are one of many indications of London's Olympic fiascoes

TIME JULY.31.12

As if rows of empty seats at events that were said to be sold out weren’t embarrassing enough for the organizers of the London Olympics, French President Francois Hollande had to rub it in his hosts’ faces during a visit on Monday. “The problem is that there are simply too many corporate seats,” he said. A French Olympics, he said, “would be interested in gold, not money.”

Perhaps Hollande is a graceless winner; French swimmers have been dominant in the pool and the country is third in the medal count. Or a sore loser; Paris had been the favorite candidate city to host the 2012 Games, but was beaten by London in the final round of voting. Paris had previously lost out to Beijing in a bid to host the 2008 Games.

Whatever the case, he was careful to avoid alienating the Brits quite as much as U.S. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who described some of the preparations for the Games as “disconcerting” shortly before he visited London last week. “The London Olympics have been very well organized,” Hollande said. “I’m not here to be a killjoy or to give lessons to the British. It’s not worthy of France.”

But the controversy continues, Gallic provocation or not. Lord Colin Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association, has urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to take responsibility for organizing ticketing in future Games, to prevent a repeat of this year’s seating fiasco. He told the Financial Times: “The IOC have now got to take a lead and make sure that investment is in place for a state of the art Olympic ticketing program that can then be improved…from Games to Games.”

Television coverage has repeatedly revealed, much to the dismay of fans who failed to obtain tickets, some venues to be only partially full. Members of the British military, who only weeks ago had stepped in when security firm G4S failed to provide sufficient numbers of security staff, were again drafted in—this time to make up the numbers in the stands, alongside teachers and schoolchildren. During the women’s gymnastics team qualifying, for example, dozens of uniformed men sat bunched together in some of the best seats in the house.

A survey by the Daily Telegraph found that over 12,000 seats, most of which had been reserved for the “Olympic family”—in other words, accredited media, IOC official and sponsors—have remained unfilled. (This figure did not include football stadiums, where some matches saw up to tens of thousands of empty seats.)

LOCOG, the organizing committee for the London Games, revealed on Monday that that it had reclaimed 3,000 unused tickets that had been returned by sports federations, which they then sold to the public overnight. The organizers also plan to meet with the IOC and sporting federations each evening of the Games to determine what blocks of tickets can go back on sale.

Jackie Brock-Doyle, a spokesman for LOCOG, said: “We are doing this session by session, talking to the accredited groups including obviously broadcast media and everybody else, and asking whether we can release for the different sessions tickets back into the public pot.”

While LOCOG will request that accredited groups return unused tickets, those ticket-holders will not be forced to do so. The IOC also plans to give up seats in accredited areas where possible.

Nonetheless, there are persisting complaints over the difficulties of actually purchasing a ticket. The online transaction system has been criticized as complicated and time-consuming, taking up to two hours to complete. The most common complaint has been of tickets for certain events being shown as available, but when customers attempted to purchase them, they were unable to make a transaction, and the tickets seemingly vanished.

Frustration over the Olympic ticketing system has also spread to the parents of competitors, some of whom have been refused entry to watch their children perform in a number of venues, including the aquatics center, Wimbledon and the rowing center at Eton Dorney, even though plenty of seats were available. Every athlete is entitled to two tickets for relatives and friends for the events they compete in. However, they must go through the Ticketmaster ticket system used by LOCOG, which was not updated to allow competing athletes to obtain tickets for their loved ones in time for the final of some events.

http://olympics.time.../#ixzz22GPBjK00

[JLumme]

One of the most douchey things I have ever read, in all my 29 years on this planet. Just because something someone else is good at doesn't quite measure up to your incredibly biased view of importance doesn't make them unimportant to THEM and those who love them..... and your just staggering ignorance of what the Olympics actually stands for makes me ashamed to count you among my genus.