Reserve A Seat On Centre Court But Find Something Better To Do

Having been unsuccessful in my attempt to buy Olympic tennis tickets I was a little surprised to see row upon row of empty seats on centre court. The Olympic tennis was apparently a sell out. But despite a great line up including Federer and Serena Williams many of those that had tickets had better things to do. Pfft! This was a problem not just confined to the tennis event. Other sell out events also unfolded to an audience of empty seats. This from The Times (PPV)

Olympic organisers have opened an inquiry into why hundreds of seats were left empty during this morning’s opening of the London 2012 swimming, tennis, gymnastics and dressage competitions.

Spectators complained that large number of seats reserved for VIPs and the media were empty despite public tickets for the venues being sold-out.

The Queen saw an embarrassingly large number of gaps in the seats at the sell-out event during a surprise visit to the 17,500-capacity Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park.

Most of the empty spaces were in “accredited” seats reserved for members of the “Olympic family”, officials from international sports’ governing bodies and the media.

There were also a significant number of empty seats at Wimbledon where the opening day’s matches included this summer’s singles champions, Roger Federer and Serena Williams, and Great Britain’s Anne Keothavong.

Michelle Obama was in the Centre Court crowd but large numbers of “accredited” seats were empty.

Television footage of the empty seats led to more angry reactions.

Lucy Manning, the ITV News political correspondent, wrote: “Looking at pics seem to be empty seats swimming, gymnastics, beach volleyball. Real shame & will annoy all those who struggled for tickets.”

Sian Turner wrote: “Shame about empty seats at swimming & gymnastics - as they were prominent prob VIP. If I was seb Coe I’d frogmarch them to their seats!”

Tom Latchem wrote: “hammering home idiotic ballot system & sky-high prices. I’d have gone but it was all ‘sold out’.”

Court 2 is absolutely rammed which is good to see. The mexican waves are going.

I think it was similar at the Commonwealth games in India. I didn't expect it to be like that at the olympics too though. What do all these super rich and elite really do with their time? Have they used their money to open up a dimension of untold amusement and pleasure rendering themselves unavailable to grace the athletes with their presence?

Out of interest HE, was it only tennis tickets you tried to buy?

Yes. I don't live in London and naively thought I'd get lucky. Couldn't afford travel etc for multiple events. Would have loved to watch gymnastics too... and maybe other stuff. Probably not athletics as in a huge stadium you would just be watching dots...

It is similar to the VIP seats at wembley. They are bought for big money as 'season tickets', reserved for every football match at the stadium and they are empty most of the time, and even in big matches there are gaps, and they take about 15 minutes after half time to fill back up.

I've just seen on sky that what happened today at Wimbledon has been replicated across many events, most of all the swimming. Events that were sold out yet hoards if empty seats. Very sad.

There should be stricter policies surrounding such seats, like if the person hasn't turned up after an hour or two, there tickets go on general sale for the remainder of the day.

There's always seating trouble at Olympics. Too many reserved seats for the rich and privileged and then they do , as you say something better. It sucks especially as these games were for the "people".

BTW - Today sucked for the Brits did it not! Chinese taking over in the pool too. How that sucks!

For once I unreservedly agree with your article Hawkeye! They should give corporate seats away if no one shows up.

Just watching the women's qualifying gymnastics. GB and USA amongst the groups in action. The empty seat problem has been solved. Reserve a seat but find something else to do but (this is a sneaky plan) get a member of the military services to sit in it...

There is now row upon row of uniformed military service men sitting in all the best seats. Most of them sitting stock upright and looking straight ahead without moving a muscle. Why do I still feel a little cheated...

Look on the bright side. If they brought their sniper rifles they can take out Britain's main rivals.

hawkeye wrote:Just watching the women's qualifying gymnastics. GB and USA amongst the groups in action. The empty seat problem has been solved. Reserve a seat but find something else to do but (this is a sneaky plan) get a member of the military services to sit in it...

There is now row upon row of uniformed military service men sitting in all the best seats. Most of them sitting stock upright and looking straight ahead without moving a muscle. Why do I still feel a little cheated...

How dumb.

They could have at least disguised them.



emancipator

This shouldn't turn into an attack on the organisers though, this is pure IOC type schmooze. I bet most of these seats are allocated to delegations (hence the availability of military types to fill in).

These people shouldn't be given seats in the first place.

Or charge them £100 per seat which gets refunded when the electronic mark of the ticket being scanned at the entrance gets recognised.

Other thing as mentioned is to resell the tickets about half way through to someone who hasn't turned up.

Other thing is to make it easier to move tickets on.

What amazes me is that out of 8.8 million available olympic seat tickets 2.2 million went to accredited sources, i.e. 25% of tickets are non public. That's ridiculous. All the tickets would easily sell to the public. So despite Seb Coe's warm words of this being the people's games, it's only 75% for the people.

Bill, all they'll do is plant seat occupiers to hold the place.

Lydian, what can Coe do? Tell the IOC or Sponsors to give up seats?

It seemed a bit strange to see empty seats after so much positive coverage of the Olympics (thus far). I was more surprised to see the Royal Box was mostly empty during Serena's match and more than half empty during Fed's match! I'd have happily gone if tickets had been available, but I guess being a fan is not enough to get tickets. If it wasn't bad enough most of the Royal Box being perceptually empty for most of the day, the surrounding seats were empty too! You would have thought that since these problems have occurred in previous Olympics they would have found a way to avoid it - clearly not.

It's simply proof of whose property this all is.

i'm not saying Coe can do anything, nor am I implyimg he should be held responsible but he's the chairman of these games and has repeatedly ntold about it beimg the people's games and designed to build a legacy....seems that 25% non-public tickets was an ok balance to have. Yes of course sponsors and IOC want tickets but 25% is too high and they should have pulled back from that amount...and surely Coe could have exerted more influence or strongly made his views known. i'm sure the negative publicity will now an effect anyway.

I think some of the corporate seats were so expensive they were either never taken up, or many firms have a policy of corporate compliance which does not allow them to accept gifts over a very small amount from other firms, or tickets to sporting events over a certain value.

25% non public tickets much too high. 10% would surely have been fine, certainly the rows of empty seats would suggest so.

I had a friend who paid £400 for their swimming seat yesterday...how do they and others feel to be sat next to an empty seat?

Like this

Sponsors bought most the seats for CEO's, who are too busy polluting first world nations with third rate products. In fairness though, the judo and weighlifting seats were almost full!