The tickets are all sold, but the venues are not full
Friday, 15th August 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Plenty of open seats in Wukesong Arena at the China-Angola men's basketball game
I am talking about empty seats—big swaths of blue, red or grey in arenas and gymnasiums. I saw more again as I watched the opening games of the beach volleyball tournament, and when I attended Olympic tennis, beach volleyball and basketball.
Before Memphis played its second game against the Chinese national team in Yangjiang this spring, assistant coach Rod Strickland looked up at the stands an hour before game time and wondered, "Will they fill it up?"
"This is China," I assured him. "They can fill up any venue they want to." But when the game tipped off, the crowd in that gym was below capacity. Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian and Wang Zhizhi were all out of action, but in a city of 2.6 million people, precious few of whom will have the chance to see Team China in action in Beijing, each one of the 4,000 seats should have been taken. And how can you explain empty chairs at the recent basketball games, featuring China at full strength and starring NBA players who have millions of fans here?
Much has been made of the tickets to these Olympics being sold out, thanks in large part to the large number of affordable tickets being made available domestically. But I wonder if that actually means that the venues will host capacity crowds. When I waited in lines in ticketing phases 3 and 4, I met more than a few people who were waiting in line for their bosses, who wanted tickets to give away to clients. I always found more of these ticket buyers near the front of the line—on the clock and under the gun, they seemed more likely to arrive extremely early.
So what happens when the boss gives a pair of tickets to a fencing preliminary to a client who decides that seeing the event is not worth the time she would need to spend out of the office? What happens when he gives tickets to a client in Sichuan, who decides he can't afford the flight to Beijing and the hotel stay?
This is just one of the many ways that sold out tickets can be prevented from turning into packed gymnasiums. I don't doubt that there are enough sports fans in Beijing to fill all of the Olympic venues—I have gotten calls and messages from Chinese friends desperately seeking a way to buy tickets to taekwondo, basketball and swimming. I had to explain to them that many of my tickets were bought in the United States from people who discovered at the last minute that they couldn't come... visa restrictions, maybe?
I have a feeling that we will see more empty seats than many people expect. If my experience is any indication, something is getting in the way of getting tickets in the hands of people who can actually attend the games.
Related: Washington Post on attendance problems
Tags: basketball, beach volleyball, Beijing Olympics, Olympic ticketing, swimming, tennis
Rocky last round of Olympic ticket sales
Saturday, 26th July 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Hundreds of thousands of tickets were made available at Olympic venues in Beijing and at the four cities that are hosting football (soccer) preliminaries, but the focus of the ticket-buying action was around a booth at the east gate of Olympic Green. With the grungy skies and the National Stadium (Bird's Nest) in the background, sales kicked off at about 9:00 Friday morning.
According to reports from AP and The Washington Post, things got ugly at the central ticket booth. Both reported fights in the crowd, clashes between press and police and heated exchanges between cops and people in line.
Phase 4 might have been the messiest domestic ticketing phase yet (Phases 1 and 3 were both marred by major technical glitches), but from where I stood in line Friday morning, about 100 yards from the main booth, it was a different story. Waiting for more than three hours, I experienced nothing but civility and patience. The line moved in an orderly fashion on a street blocked off from cars.
As latecomers who had only arrived around 7:30 Friday morning, the people near me had invested much less than those at the front of the line. They expressed little hope of getting tickets and shared the stories they had heard about people who had waited in line for the last two days, eating only bread and not sleeping. One man pedaled off on his bicycle to buy water for others in line, selling it for the same price (1 RMB per bottle) for which he bought it. People met with patience the constant mixed reports and rumors regarding when ticket sales would stop for the day and what kinds of tickets were available.
When I gave up and opted to leave the line for food and water (and to get some work done), I ended up meeting on the subway a trio of Beijingers who had waited for two days and scored tickets to football (soccer) and diving. Despite being hungry and sleep deprived, they were glowing.
"I wasn't planning on staying when I first arrived [at the ticket site]," said Li Yiqing, who, in an animal-print, rhinestone-studded dress, high-heel shoes and thick nylon stockings, was definitely not dressed for two days living on a sidewalk in 93-degree heat. "But waiting two days was not so bad."
I went home thinking that Phase 4 had gone relatively smoothly, only to read the above reports from credible sources that were even closer to the action than I.
The two vastly different accounts of the day's events—the official accredited media's and mine—underscore the significance of time and place in reporting the news, and demonstrate how easily media reports can be skewed by limiting access to certain locales, something that's likely to come into play during the Olympic period in Beijing.
Image: AP via Washington Post
Tags: Beijing Olympics, Olympic ticketing
Venue maps and the last round of Olympic tickets
Thursday, 24th July 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
A list of ticket booths is below. The BBC's Olympic venue map is a great place to start if you don't know the location of an Olympic site. For a map that's less geographically detailed but includes the venues' Mandarin names, check out ChinesePod's Olympics site, where you can also pick up some last-minute Olympic-themed language lessons.
Get there early, and bring your passport and your sense of humor—the lines are bound to be long. Cash and Visa cards are the only two forms of payment that will be accepted. The box offices close at 6 p.m., but it's a safe bet that tickets will be sold out long before then.
Beijing's main ticket outlet is on the north side of Beitucheng Road, on the west side of the public transportation parking space. Subway lines 8 and 10 meet at Beitucheng. This booth will sell tickets for events hosted at the following venues:
National Stadium (Bird's Nest)
National Aquatics Center (Water Cube)
National Indoor Stadium
Fencing Hall of National Convention Center
Beijing Wukesong Sports Center Baseball Field
Box offices at football (soccer) preliminaries sites—Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao—will only sell tickets for events they are hosting.
According to BOCOG's ticketing site, the following venues will have booths selling tickets only for events that they are hosting:
Olympic Green North venue cluster
Olympic Sports Center venue cluster
Wukesong venue cluster
Laoshan Velodrome
Beijing Shooting Range CTF/Hall
Fengtai Sports Center Softball Field
Capital Indoor Stadium
Peking University Gymnasium
Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium
Beijing Institute of Technology Gymnasium
Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics Gymnasium
Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium
China Agricultural University Gymnasium
Triathlon Venue
Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park
Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Ground
Beijing Workers' Stadium
Beijing Workers' Gymnasium
Tags: Beijing, Chinesepod, Olympic ticketing, Olympics, venues
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
Phase 3 Olympic Ticket Sales Start May 5
Monday, 28th April 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Tickets will be on sale from May 5 to June 9, and can be bought at Bank of China or online with a Visa card or Chinese bank card at BOCOG's ticketing Web site.
To find the Bank of China head office for your province, check here. Call your local head office to find the branch nearest you.
BOCOG ticketing customer service phone number: +86 10 952008
BOCOG ticketing customer service e-mail: ticketsupport@beijing2008.cn
Image: BOCOG
Tags: Olympic ticketing