So Olympic tickets... here we go again. Let’s spin the roulette wheel.
First up an all events Modern Pentathlon ticket and in less than three minutes Ticketmaster told me I was having a laugh. So no change there then. I spin the wheel again.
I take a punt on the Brownlee boys and the Triathlon. Ticketmaster fell off its chair at this point, ROFL-ing for all it was worth, but only after making me wait 7... no 8... no 9... no 10 minutes... no 11... it just kept going up and up like something you bought from Microsoft. I remove my fist from my PC screen and spin the roulette wheel again.
I go for the lesser Modern Pentathlon option, a ticket for just the Greenwich Park events - the riding, running and shooting. Ticketmaster said 'yeah no problem'. Now it really was taking the piss.
I kept looking at the screen which was now saying ‘you have 1 minute 10 seconds to accept these tickets’... no ‘1 minute 5 seconds’ ... ‘1 minute’... hang on just one minute... I mean 50 seconds... I mean 45 seconds... this countdown is going down not up, that can’t be right. It’s also not long enough to decide whether I’m being defrauded or not.
Sod it. Buy buy buy. It’s only money and it’s the London Olympics. We all love the London Olympics.
So yes we have tickets. I still can’t get anywhere near the Olympic Park but it’s a start.
Buoyed by this success, I wonder what the hotel prices are like. The media have led us to believe that the only way to stay in London during the games is to pay someone a grand or so to sleep in their garage on the edge of the M25 and then walk in to London because all the public transport will have ground to a halt.
So I’m rather surprised to pay £85 for a double room with an ensuite bathroom and full English breakfast just over a mile from Greenwich Park. As I say, we all love the London Olympics. I really don’t know what everyone is complaining about.
Talking of London, L is there today for work. Good choice Dear, there’s a train strike on but then again isn’t there always. Does anyone know what they’re striking for? Thought not. They’re probably all sat in front of their PC trying to get Olympic tickets. Ha. Tough. I’ve got them.
Anyway, she has to get a taxi from Nottingham to Long Eaton, then get a train to Tamworth and then to London... coming back is via Tamworth, Derby and then by bus to Nottingham. Which is sort of annoying, sort of hilarious and just makes you really really hope that they don’t get given whatever they're demanding.
I take the boys to squash, well they wait in the car and then I wave to them as I go to the pub for a pint of ‘Traditional’. That’s what it was called and that’s what it was. Very nice, none of this ‘blonde’ stuff. Then I make it up to the boys by chucking balls on Embankment.
After her traumatic day, L texts to say she’s just got off the bus and will meet me in bed with a bottle of wine. Ok boys, that’s it, game's over.
(Thursday 17th May)
Showing posts with label Ticketmaster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ticketmaster. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Monday, 14 May 2012
A Very Big Sofa
Apparently LOCOG or whatever they call themselves have found some spare tickets down the back of the Olympic sofa. About 900,000 of them. It’s a very big sofa. So this morning I make use of my exclusive ‘presale’ window. How this be a presale when it’s after the original ballot and after the secondary sales window earlier this year... I have no idea but never mind.
It is with a heavy heart, e.g. huge expectations of failure (again), that I log on to my exclusive window, just me and approximately one million others.
I’m after track cycling, which everybody is after of course, just because they once saw Sir Chris or Vicky P in Lyrca and thought I’ll have ticket for some of that, so naturally I am correct in assuming it will be another unsuccessful attempt.
It’s also another battle with the unfathomable Ticketmaster. I promise I’ll never ever slag off SeeTickets again. I avoid Ticketmaster like the plague for gig tickets for the same reason that it’s a disaster for Olympics tickets. First there’s their obsession with ‘captcha’ and it always takes me three attempts to solve the puzzle, which in Olympic ticket buying terms is valuable seconds lost.
Then there’s their annoying way of being incapable of updating availability in real time, sometimes you suspect with Ticketmaster even in the same week is beyond them. So you pick your event, your price range and how many you want and press the button marked ‘beg’. It tells you to go for a long slow walk around the block while it consults the tea leaves in the bottom of the Ticketmaster mug before coming and saying ‘nope, not go any of those’. It doesn’t say ‘we haven’t got 4 but you can have 2’, or ‘we haven’t got any at £20 but we have some at £40’. It doesn’t even say ‘we haven’t got any tickets at all for that event you moron, what are you even trying for?’
Well I’m trying because your website says you have availability in ALL price categories, so I sort of assumed you had availability in all price categories. No? Well perhaps you did last Friday but clearly you haven’t bothered to update it since. So I change my criteria and try again, in an attempt to unlock the perfect combination that might yield me a back row restricted view seat in the velodrome behind a bunch of Moldovans who probably got theirs for nothing because no one’s heard of the Olympics in Moldova.
Each time you have to manually empty your shopping basket because it won’t let you put a second set in there until you take out the ones they haven’t got. You’d think it would do this for you. More valuable seconds lost.
Eventually with Ticketmaster still showing full availability in all categories I give and go check the comments on the BBC website to try to find someone who’s more miserable than me. Only to come up against some smartarse saying how easy it all was. Crowing about how they bagged front rows seats and a night out with Jess Varnish, all in under 30 seconds and still had change from ten grand. We all love the London Olympics.
Plan FF is Thursday and a punt on either Triathlon or Modern Pentathlon tickets. Don’t hold your breath.
I wonder if that Nottingham lad who was trying to give away the £1,000 romantic holiday for two to Malta after his girlfriend dumped him thought about swapping it for Olympic tickets. Perhaps he’s already got Olympic tickets. Perhaps when they split she got the Olympic tickets and he got Malta. No wonder he doesn’t fancy going any more.
The afternoon’s entertainment is Daughter dashing (well sort of) around Sheffield, trying to find a Co-Op bank, trying to extract enough money from them to pay her rent and then taking it to her landlords office by 5pm, having not started until about 2.30. All the time I’m assisting her by text. It reminds me mightily of Treasure Hunt with Anneka Rice back in 80’s for some reason, only without the helicopter.
I was beginning to wonder if she’d get there before 5pm but she did, with time to spare in the end. So at least that challenge went to plan.
No dog class, I take the boys on the park instead.
(Monday 14th May)
It is with a heavy heart, e.g. huge expectations of failure (again), that I log on to my exclusive window, just me and approximately one million others.
I’m after track cycling, which everybody is after of course, just because they once saw Sir Chris or Vicky P in Lyrca and thought I’ll have ticket for some of that, so naturally I am correct in assuming it will be another unsuccessful attempt.
It’s also another battle with the unfathomable Ticketmaster. I promise I’ll never ever slag off SeeTickets again. I avoid Ticketmaster like the plague for gig tickets for the same reason that it’s a disaster for Olympics tickets. First there’s their obsession with ‘captcha’ and it always takes me three attempts to solve the puzzle, which in Olympic ticket buying terms is valuable seconds lost.
Then there’s their annoying way of being incapable of updating availability in real time, sometimes you suspect with Ticketmaster even in the same week is beyond them. So you pick your event, your price range and how many you want and press the button marked ‘beg’. It tells you to go for a long slow walk around the block while it consults the tea leaves in the bottom of the Ticketmaster mug before coming and saying ‘nope, not go any of those’. It doesn’t say ‘we haven’t got 4 but you can have 2’, or ‘we haven’t got any at £20 but we have some at £40’. It doesn’t even say ‘we haven’t got any tickets at all for that event you moron, what are you even trying for?’
Well I’m trying because your website says you have availability in ALL price categories, so I sort of assumed you had availability in all price categories. No? Well perhaps you did last Friday but clearly you haven’t bothered to update it since. So I change my criteria and try again, in an attempt to unlock the perfect combination that might yield me a back row restricted view seat in the velodrome behind a bunch of Moldovans who probably got theirs for nothing because no one’s heard of the Olympics in Moldova.
Each time you have to manually empty your shopping basket because it won’t let you put a second set in there until you take out the ones they haven’t got. You’d think it would do this for you. More valuable seconds lost.
Eventually with Ticketmaster still showing full availability in all categories I give and go check the comments on the BBC website to try to find someone who’s more miserable than me. Only to come up against some smartarse saying how easy it all was. Crowing about how they bagged front rows seats and a night out with Jess Varnish, all in under 30 seconds and still had change from ten grand. We all love the London Olympics.
Plan FF is Thursday and a punt on either Triathlon or Modern Pentathlon tickets. Don’t hold your breath.
I wonder if that Nottingham lad who was trying to give away the £1,000 romantic holiday for two to Malta after his girlfriend dumped him thought about swapping it for Olympic tickets. Perhaps he’s already got Olympic tickets. Perhaps when they split she got the Olympic tickets and he got Malta. No wonder he doesn’t fancy going any more.
The afternoon’s entertainment is Daughter dashing (well sort of) around Sheffield, trying to find a Co-Op bank, trying to extract enough money from them to pay her rent and then taking it to her landlords office by 5pm, having not started until about 2.30. All the time I’m assisting her by text. It reminds me mightily of Treasure Hunt with Anneka Rice back in 80’s for some reason, only without the helicopter.
I was beginning to wonder if she’d get there before 5pm but she did, with time to spare in the end. So at least that challenge went to plan.
No dog class, I take the boys on the park instead.
(Monday 14th May)
Thursday, 17 November 2011
You Are In A Queue...
Having failed to get Cycling World Cup tickets via British Cycling on Tuesday I’m online at bang on 10am this morning to snag some the moment they go on sale to the general public, unfortunately via the incredibly clunky system that is Ticketmaster. After a ‘you are in a queue - waiting time eight minutes’ message I am informed, around eight minutes later, that they’re all sold out.
So having not missed a Cycling World Cup for three years, I won’t be at this one. I'm beginning to hate the Olympics. Unlike the Olympic Stadium itself the new velodrome is supposed to be for life, not just for the Olympics, so one wonders why they didn't they build one with more seating?
After that perhaps I could have done with something stronger than my first ever 2.7% beer at lunchtime. 2.7%? Why? You ask. The government has reduced beer duty for beers of 2.8% strength and below in an attempt to persuade us to not get ratted every night on Special Brew. A worthy aim but one that will only work if the beers taste good. So what does Everards’ Southgate Bitter taste like... well, water. So I’m afraid I’m going to stick to something with at least a 4 on the front.
It does mean that I’m sober enough to give Daughter a cookery lesson by email this afternoon.
‘Shoot me now...’ It sounds like L’s having a ‘great’ time in London, where she is for work. ‘Chill some nice white wine for me and I'll be forever grateful. Just leave a straw by the bottle.’ Yep a great time. I dutiful put the wine in the fridge as requested because I like the sound of forever grateful.
Another committee meeting tonight and for once it’s a good one. A small majority group of us voted everything that moved down and despite starting half an hour late still finished at around 9pm. Which means I can get back to Nottingham in time to pick a girl up off Ilkeston Road and bring her home to devil my kidneys. I think that’s what she said they were called.
(Thursday 17th November)
So having not missed a Cycling World Cup for three years, I won’t be at this one. I'm beginning to hate the Olympics. Unlike the Olympic Stadium itself the new velodrome is supposed to be for life, not just for the Olympics, so one wonders why they didn't they build one with more seating?
After that perhaps I could have done with something stronger than my first ever 2.7% beer at lunchtime. 2.7%? Why? You ask. The government has reduced beer duty for beers of 2.8% strength and below in an attempt to persuade us to not get ratted every night on Special Brew. A worthy aim but one that will only work if the beers taste good. So what does Everards’ Southgate Bitter taste like... well, water. So I’m afraid I’m going to stick to something with at least a 4 on the front.
It does mean that I’m sober enough to give Daughter a cookery lesson by email this afternoon.
‘Shoot me now...’ It sounds like L’s having a ‘great’ time in London, where she is for work. ‘Chill some nice white wine for me and I'll be forever grateful. Just leave a straw by the bottle.’ Yep a great time. I dutiful put the wine in the fridge as requested because I like the sound of forever grateful.
Another committee meeting tonight and for once it’s a good one. A small majority group of us voted everything that moved down and despite starting half an hour late still finished at around 9pm. Which means I can get back to Nottingham in time to pick a girl up off Ilkeston Road and bring her home to devil my kidneys. I think that’s what she said they were called.
(Thursday 17th November)
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