Olympic Ticketing: Queueing up, Signing on, and Hoping to Get Lucky
Monday, 5th May 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (2)
The third and final phase of domestic Olympic ticket sales begins today and runs through May 9. Not surprisingly, there is nothing easy about buying tickets.This morning people lined up at Bank of China ticket outlets across the country. At my nearest bank (Jianwai Soho branch), people were lined up at least as early as 8:00 for the 9:00 opening. By the time the bank opened, there were about 100 people there. They waited patiently with their wads of cash and their lists of events with tickets still available. The doors opened several minutes after 9:00 and a couple of dozen people were allowed to enter. Much to surprise of the rest of the people waiting, the bank manager said that no one else would be allowed to purchase tickets. "You can buy them online," he said.
The surprisingly agreeable crowd slowly dispersed, after asking lots of questions about how, when and where they could buy tickets. A bank manager told me that the same thing will happen tomorrow morning—30 people will be allowed in to buy tickets.
I'm currently online, repeating the same process over and over—sign in, find tickets, place order, watch "Loading…" screen, get error message.
The Atlantic reporter James Fallows is sharing his online ticket-buying ups and downs on his blog. I won't be doing that, as my reports would be full of curse words and other things I'm sure I'd want to take back later.
Tags: Olympic ticketing