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Any ticketing system which leaves some people with more tickets than they wanted while others get nothing is clearly a shambles. There were enough tickets for everyone who applied to get at least one session.
There have been comments that critics don't have any better suggestions, but here's mine:

1) Applicants list all the events they're interested in, IN ORDER OF PREFERENCE, along with the maximum amount of cash they are willing to spend.
2) The system randomly selects an applicant from those with no tickets yet, and they get tickets for the first available event on their list.
3) When all applicants have been allocated tickets, repeat for second allocation, third allocation and so on.
(An applicant gets no more tickets once either their cash limit is reached or their selected events are all full.)

Any comments?

"I was finally successful in submitting my application and payment for hockey and handball - and I have a precious e-mail to prove it".

Wrong! All you've done is submit an application for those tickets. You haven't paid for anything and you haven't got any tickets. I really hope that watching hockey and handball (what is that anyway?!) isn't the culmination of a once in a lifetime opportunity.

There will be more twists and turns to come - tickets were held back from the first ballot, with the '2nd chance' designed to get rid of the dregs. More tickets will be released for the 2nd '2nd chance' sale in July. Then more for the Autumn. Then more for general sale. The drip feeding of tickets with zero information about allocations is purely designed to make us part with our cash to watch drivel, just so we can say 'we were there'.

I have been looking to buy tickets in the second sale but all events are currently unavailable and have been since 7.30 this morning. Even football which is supposed to have 74% of todays allocations free is unavailable. I cant believe that all football stadia sold out within one hour and a half.

As my wife says to me , the whole country was overjoyed that the UK won 2012 and now probably the whole country is shattered and disappointed at the calamitous ticket process, apart from a few wealthy individuals who applied for £10k worth of tickets and some corrupt international sports delegations and authorities who will get to see them live.

I am not sure this has been such a boon for the majority of the country as we will all just have to watch it on TV like as if it was half way around the world in New Zealand for example. I dont think the Olympics pay any tax to our impoverished country on their profitable income . So who actually gains when the sports stadia in and around London get demolished or remain empty and a financial flop as empty unused running tracks. Having failed to get tickets, its twice burned three times shy. A severe disappointment all round.

Well done Lord Coe or whatever your name is! This ticketing system is an absolute farce!!!

If I wanted to go and see a headline music act I can select the artist, date, venue, and time, even which seat I want and add it to my cart. I am safe in the knowledge that those seats are mine even before I have paid for them as I am given 10 minutes to submit my application before those seats are released back to the public.

First come first served for the Olympics wasnt like that!!! I submitted an application for Hockey tickets and got an email receipt back at 06:55. In that time the site crached a couple of times, I wasted many minutes searching for 'available' tickets as the main lisitings showed all price bands for an event but you had to click into a session to actually see what prices were available. Poor system design!!

Although I had the tickets in my shopping cart they actually might have not been available in the first place.

I think the whole ticketing process has been a farce, I can only think that they saved money on this IT system as it coiuld clearly have given more information and been more 'real time'.

The initial ballot system favoured the rich - not surprising given who is running the show! The scond round also favoured the rich as I clearly should have 'bought' more tickets then I would have had a better chance. Also, a better chance of going into debt!!!

What a waste of my life!!!

My experience was similar to that of Amanda Farnsworth's commented on above, even getting to the point of enterring the authorisation password of the Verisign payment system. However, I got a message that the server had been shut down so it clearly did crash and I am really cross that they keep saying it didn't. After many attempts to log back in and try again, once I did get back in there were no more tickets available for my chosen event. It is a fallacy to say it was first come first served because this was clearly not the case. There is no record of my application for tickets on my account page despite successfully being ahead of the queue, placing the tickets in my basket and completing the payment process.

In response to Locog's comments, I would like to say that I had all the above problems with the application process but was confident that, having received an email at 6.34 a.m. confirming my requests for hockey (only preliminary round), athletics and handball, I would at least get one of the sessions. Wrong. Not a single ticket. A colleague applying at the same time as me, got 6 tickets for hockey (and his payment was processed a good 15 minutes aftr mine). How can this be first come first served? I am so, so, so disillusioned with the whole process and was quite annoyed at the email Locog sent today saying that they know I would be disappointed at not getting any tickets! That's putting it mildly. It'll be interesting to see what is on offer to those who got tickets in the first round and have the chance to apply for more after the second chance window closes

@Xobbo
'Any ticketing system which leaves some people with more tickets than they wanted while others get nothing is clearly a shambles'

No such thing. You couldn't get more tickets than you wanted as you applied for what you wanted. Whether you expected to get all of them is another issue which is what I think you mean. You applied for it, you wanted it.


@Rozza
'A colleague applying at the same time as me, got 6 tickets for hockey (and his payment was processed a good 15 minutes aftr mine). How can this be first come first served?'

Was it exactly the same session? Not saying it's you but after the first round so many people seemed to forget that there could be 6 sessions a day and 6 price bands in each so so many combinations where people could have crossed, not to mention that number of tickets requested can have a part to play.

But also does the point of payment have anything to do with it? Maybe it was when they were added to the basket?

I have been generally supportive of LOCOG over on James Pearce's blog comments - and remain so. However, answers to the following would be useful:

[1] why was there no 'rationing' of tickets in the original process? Plenty people got nothing while others got a handful of sessions (or more). Surely the balloting should have given 'preference' to those who still had nothing, over those who'd already got say 2 or more sessions.

[2] why was the applying limit set at 20 sessions in the original process? This seems in hindsight too high. Afterall, it was 3 sessions in this second process.

[3] some people were denied entry to the second process having got just 1 session (often football); or, in this second process, have got 1 session for something they'd not ideally have wanted. Presmably the December contingency release, while giving opportunity to people who've missed-out twice, won't actually advantage them: by giving - effectively - first-dibs on prestige events?

And I'd add a chaser... it would be very unfair if people who didn't bother trying, on Friday, get first-dibs on the December contingency release: upon grounds that they don't have any tickets yet.

Loads of people participated in Friday's process (most of them getting up at 6am!!) and have in many cases settled for a sport /session / priceband which wasn't their ideal - but which they felt limited to, given the reduced choice, to get something.

It would be completely unjust if such people are put behind those who didn't bother entering this second process, come December, when some better tickets arrive.

This is the email I had from VISA when I applied for a Prepaid card to buy Olympic Tickets
As you can see its an outrage,

-------------------
Whilst carrying out a random security check , we have noticed that your account needs further verification, and we have temporarily restricted your account.

Your EntroPay account will be fully reactivated once we have receivedand reviewed the following ;

1.) A clear copy of your Passport, Photographic Drivers Licence or I.D. Card (both sides).

2.) A clear copy of both sides of all funding sources registered on your account, (For security reasons, we only need to see the first 6 and last 4 digits, Please COVER the 3 digit security code (CVV)). If your funding source is a Virtual Card, please send us a screenshot.

3.) A clear copy of a recent utility bill, on which your name and address are clearly visible.

4.) The name of the merchant at which you intend to spend.

You may send the documents via the Help Desk inside your account which is a secure channel.

Log into your EntroPay account, click on Help and Support, select helpdesk, click new request and attach the documents.

I sent them a photograph of both sides of my bank card a photograph of both sides of the prepay card I already have , a photograph of a electricity bill
And a Letter for London 2012 acknowledging my application for tickets ,

But this isn’t good enough to get a prepaid card ,
I now have to apply for a pass port which I don’t currently have and e mail them a copy of that when I get it ,

This is absurd

And rapidly becoming civil liberties issue.
I will now completely mil out on the current round of ticket offers,

Reading and hearing of the huge number of complaints nationwide is testament to a totally flawed and unjust ticketing system. There are a lot of angry and frustrated people out there and the apologists for this Fiasco are just adding insult to injury. For hundreds of thousands of people in this country the Olympics will now be a non event. Coe and Deighton should hang their heads in shame for this shambolic mess.

Did'nt get any tickets, not likely to get any; can I follow my sport on the ´óÏó´«Ã½? not very likely.
For some reason the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has ignored Fencing and other so called lesser sports when it comes to airtime. At the last olympics in Beijing we were given 30 minutes of rain falling on the Archery field but only about 45 sec of fencing Total during the three weeks.
If Fencing is good enough for the Aprentice is it not good enough to show on one of the multitude of digital and terrestial streams that will be available.

I would like the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to committ to covering every Olypmpic sport for a minimum of 3 hours. Broadcast it at 3am 5am it does'nt matter as we can record it and watch it at our leisure.
If the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is going to invest in multi stream digital access then make the most of it and use it 24/7.
PS how about using some of the expertise in the Bristol wildlife team to capture the fast action in Fencing?

Roger; as you said in Sept '10 "nobody asked me" is a common response to research results............well nobody asked me .....and I was not aware of any research into what we wanted the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to cover at the games until I received a letter from Ed Vaizey MP today.
I realise its too late now but did the researchers talk to the UK organising bodies of all the Olympic sports?
Was there an open forum for comments, that was advertised.
If I am excluded from being there I at least want to watch my Olympic sport on the ´óÏó´«Ã½