2012 Olympic Athletics Days - which one?

G-Money

Apparently the postal service returned my ticket to the Dutch crowd, so I have to go pick it up in London next week. A definite shambles. I'll have to get onto Locog.

MacGyver007

Brianderunner wrote: »

Those tickets didnt exist, i'm convinced of it. Once you selected you were in a 15 min queue (which turned out to be more like 30 mins) before being told there were none available.

And I thought the delay was due to my poor broadband connection!
These long delays have only started in the last few days and at certain times i.e. when they release "tickets" for sale (cf. http://os-site-tracker.com/examples.php). It has also had the effect of stopping people from selling their unwanted tickets back. I have a couple of water polo tickets for next Monday morning that I wanted to sell back but I was unable to because any time I went to "view confirmed tickets", I was told that I could not access the page because they were "experiencing high demand and the page you have requested is temporarily unavailable". Ticketmaster have a lot to answer for in this whole ticket fiasco. :mad:

I also tried ringing the London 2012 Ticketing line in a desperate effort to secure 2 tickets for the Tuesday morning athletics (when our local man, Athenry's Paul Hession is in action) and/or the Thursday night session. I never got through there either; they kept terminating my calls due to "high call volumes". I don't know how they could have such volumes if they keep cutting people off.

G-Money

Just thought I'd update this. In the end I had to go pick up the ticket at a hotel in London. It worked out ok in the end but could easily have went to pot. I was flying over on Wednesday morning and the ticket was for the evening event. The flight was delayed for about 30 minutes due to fog and by the time I got to the hotel to get the ticket and back to where I was staying, it was just after 1pm. I had about 2 hours to relax before I had to head off to the stadium (they advised to be there 2 hours beforehand to get through security) but I was through security in about 2 minutes so it was no big deal.

grimbergen

I was there for the wednesday session and must say credit to the organisers everyhting ran like clockwork. The locals were obviously scared off by the horror stories regarding the transport and the normally sardine-like central line was empty at 8.30 am on the way to Stratford. Only down side were some of the people sitting around me - one Australian guy asked about 50 questions re the events including "how do you win the pole vault"...:eek:

rainbowtrout

I was at the Tuesday evening session and again everything was so efficient. No problems getting in and collecting tickets etc. Spent no more than 5 minutes in any queue. Credit where credit is due.

What I couldn't get over was the amount of people going in and out of the stadium during what was only a 2.5 hour session for beer, curries, truckloads of junk food. You'd swear they had never eaten in their lives and like me were probably in the park for a good while before getting into the stadium so had plenty of time to eat. It was only 2.5 hours of live events yet the amount of times I had to get up to let people out to bring back a load of beers and junk food was unreal.

G-Money

Got my delivery charge refunded today. Glad I didn't have to nag them about it too much!

Racman

rainbowtrout wrote: »

What I couldn't get over was the amount of people going in and out of the stadium during what was only a 2.5 hour session for beer, curries, truckloads of junk food. You'd swear they had never eaten in their lives and like me were probably in the park for a good while before getting into the stadium so had plenty of time to eat. It was only 2.5 hours of live events yet the amount of times I had to get up to let people out to bring back a load of beers and junk food was unreal.

Didn't see this until now but I share your shock. In my case, I was at Katie Taylor's boxing final. Unfortunately, it was mostly Irish people, bursting out of their soccer and rugby shirts. Large numbers were carrying two pints to their seats before the first bout. And these are the ones with an interest in sport! What are the stay at home couch potatoes like?! I fear for the future of our health service.

rainbowtrout

Racman wrote: »

Didn't see this until now but I share your shock. In my case, I was at Katie Taylor's boxing final. Unfortunately, it was mostly Irish people, bursting out of their soccer and rugby shirts. Large numbers were carrying two pints to their seats before the first bout. And these are the ones with an interest in sport! What are the stay at home couch potatoes like?! I fear for the future of our health service.

God forbid they might spend 90 minutes (at least I think that's what the boxing sessions were) without a drink in hand.

I got the feeling that there were plenty there who weren't really interested in what was going on in front of them, but it was an excuse to go out for the night and drink loads and have a big feed and be able to say they were at the Olympics. Like the people who go to concerts, often very small gigs where it's hard to get tickets and spend the whole night in and out to the bar and talking and not even watching whoever is up on stage.

Pisco Sour

rainbowtrout wrote: »

God forbid they might spend 90 minutes (at least I think that's what the boxing sessions were) without a drink in hand.

I got the feeling that there were plenty there who weren't really interested in what was going on in front of them, but it was an excuse to go out for the night and drink loads and have a big feed and be able to say they were at the Olympics. Like the people who go to concerts, often very small gigs where it's hard to get tickets and spend the whole night in and out to the bar and talking and not even watching whoever is up on stage.

I attended said event, and I had an interest. I also drank my fair share of pints and had the craic. I'm also in good physical shape.

Both your posts are just an excuse to bash our own people. God forbid somebody wants to have a pint when on their holidays FFS!

walshb

If they were behaved and supportive of Tayor I don't see an issue. Of course with a crowd there will be supporters and band wagon supporters. That occurs in all crowds. Bit late now trying to dispel the stereotyped Irish as a nation of piss heads! I was very proud of the support and cheering that our boxers received from the fans. Brilliant!

Pisco Sour

walshb wrote: »

If they were behaved and supportive of Tayor I don't see an issue. Of course with a crowd there will be supporters and band wagon supporters. That occurs in all crowds. Bit late now trying to dispel the stereotyped Irish as a nation of piss heads! I was very proud of the support and cheering that our boxers received from the fans. Brilliant!

The only shameful behaviour was a minority of Irish fans booing Ochigava when she came into the ring. Besides that there were no problems. Just people enjoying themselves and a rare Irish sporting success.

walshb

Pisco Sour wrote: »

The only shameful behaviour was a minority of Irish fans booing Ochigava when she came into the ring. Besides that there were no problems. Just people enjoying themselves and a rare Irish sporting success.

Well, I will not condemn the fans for that. That bitch deserved it after her disgraceful remarks concerning Katie and this country.

chinguetti

I was at 4 different sports at the Olympics and saw some people going out for food and drink at venues for between 5,000 to 80,000 but nothing out of the norm.

However i was at 2 big concerts and a few sporting events in Ireland this summer and couldn't believe how many people spent their time in and out of their seats/rows looking for food and drink along with the drink they smuggled into the event. I am also just back from mainland Europe and saw loads of people drinking socially but not one drunk person while i was there.

I have no problem with people having a pint or three but i often wonder why people spend so much time going in and out for drinks at any event whereby they miss half the event they went to see. At every event, you'll get people who are at it to say they were there and they have no interest in the event, hence they drink to avoid boredom.

I don't think its wrong to say that Irish people have a major problem with our attitude to drink compared to alot of the world. The question is how to change it because nothing that has happened in the past has worked.

shels4ever

chinguetti wrote: »

I was at 4 different sports at the Olympics and saw some people going out for food and drink at venues for between 5,000 to 80,000 but nothing out of the norm.

However i was at 2 big concerts and a few sporting events in Ireland this summer and couldn't believe how many people spent their time in and out of their seats/rows looking for food and drink along with the drink they smuggled into the event. I am also just back from mainland Europe and saw loads of people drinking socially but not one drunk person while i was there.

I have no problem with people having a pint or three but i often wonder why people spend so much time going in and out for drinks at any event whereby they miss half the event they went to see. At every event, you'll get people who are at it to say they were there and they have no interest in the event, hence they drink to avoid boredom.

I don't think its wrong to say that Irish people have a major problem with our attitude to drink compared to alot of the world. The question is how to change it because nothing that has happened in the past has worked.

Try going to a baseball or American football game, don't think its an irish thing and boxing nights usually do involve alcohol.

rainbowtrout

Pisco Sour wrote: »

I attended said event, and I had an interest. I also drank my fair share of pints and had the craic. I'm also in good physical shape.

Both your posts are just an excuse to bash our own people. God forbid somebody wants to have a pint when on their holidays FFS!

You clearly haven't read my posts because if you did you would know I was at the athletics and not the boxing, so i'm not out 'to bash our own people'. None of the people around me in the Olympic Stadium were Irish, but I still spent the 2.5 hours getting up and down to leave people in and out. I wasn't the only one who found this annoying. There was one guy in my row who went out at least 5 times and by the time he went out the last time, the general attitude of people around him was 'for fcuk sake, can you not go 10 minutes without going to the bar, we want to watch the live athletics in front of us, not having to keep getting up and down for the night to let this idiot in and out'

I have no problem with someone getting a drink and a bite to eat at an event, but when it gets to the point where they spend most of the evening in and out to the bar, they're not watching the event in question, and they are annoying everyone else around them, yes I do think I'm entitled to be annoyed.

If you were at the cinema and someone sitting inside of you went out five times during the film (many of which are a similar length to these events) you'd be pretty pissed off with being disturbed each time.

Pisco Sour

rainbowtrout wrote: »

You clearly haven't read my posts because if you did you would know I was at the athletics and not the boxing, so i'm not out 'to bash our own people'. None of the people around me in the Olympic Stadium were Irish, but I still spent the 2.5 hours getting up and down to leave people in and out. I wasn't the only one who found this annoying. There was one guy in my row who went out at least 5 times and by the time he went out the last time, the general attitude of people around him was 'for fcuk sake, can you not go 10 minutes without going to the bar, we want to watch the live athletics in front of us, not having to keep getting up and down for the night to let this idiot in and out'

I have no problem with someone getting a drink and a bite to eat at an event, but when it gets to the point where they spend most of the evening in and out to the bar, they're not watching the event in question, and they are annoying everyone else around them, yes I do think I'm entitled to be annoyed.

If you were at the cinema and someone sitting inside of you went out five times during the film (many of which are a similar length to these events) you'd be pretty pissed off with being disturbed each time.

Fair points. My post was more in response to racman's post and rant about Irish people drinking at the boxing. I quoted the wrong person I suppose.