Ticketing Process for Sochi 2014 Based on London 2012 Model

Well, welcome back.  Thank you, thank you.  I've actually been away; job interview in NY, an unplanned night at a hotel bar in Queens after Delta cancelled my return flight and a trip to Cincinnati over the weekend all took priority over the Olympics.  I know, I know, shame on me.  Also, I'm also working on my other website at www.wtfisadebtceiling.com (warning: not a real website).  So, I've had that going for me, which is nice.

It does, however, mean that I remain behind in the news cycle (what's new?) to the intrepid reporters over at aroundtherings.net.  Mark Bisson reports that Sochi 2014 plans to emulate the controversial 'ballot' ticketing scheme that has been something of a nightmare for London 2012. 

Speaking of WTF, WTF is a 'ballot' when it comes to buying tickets?  The Telegraph printed something of a FAQ to the first round of ticket purchasing opportunities but I'll summarize it in this space because the process is confusing to the point that the paper created an interactive app to help navigate it: Over a 42-day period in March and April, one could fill out a form to apply for the 6.6 million tickets made available for 645 sessions and there was no penalty for applying late in the process.  One would then fill out what sport/venue/day/price point they wanted, while also indicating whether they would be willing to accept more or less expensive tickets if the tickets they want are not available.  One could do this, obviously, for more than one session if they so chose.  Sessions that were oversold would have tickets allocated on a lottery system, while unsold tickets (of which there were about 1 million after this first round of the process, for less desirable sports and sports such as soccer, which will be played in massive stadiums) are available in a second-chance ballot.  Simple enough, right?

Well, there were/are a couple problems.  The obvious and most fixable one is the fact that the ticketing site crashed on the last day, overwhelmed with last-minute ticket seekers.  The other problem, as evidenced by the number of buyers who blew up twitter, is what I would call "Holy shit, I hope I don't get all the tickets I ordered."  That is, many people over-ordered, operating under the assumption that they would not actually get tickets for all the sessions they picked.  Not that there was much they could do about it, because London organizers were debiting/charging your Visa for whatever you were awarded.  Accounts that came back with 'insufficient funds' got a bit of grace period but, other than that, you got what you got.  There will eventually be an official secondary market set up where you can sell tickets you don't want/had to sell your car to get, but that won't be for another year.  Until then, you're paying interest on Olympic tix.

As we square the circle here, naturally none of this has deterred Sochi 2014 president Dimitri Chernyshenko:

Sochi 2014 president Dmitry Chernyshenko says Russia's Winter Olympics organizers will sell tickets via the controversial ballot system adopted for London 2012 Olympics.

Thousands of people missed out on tickets in the first and second round of ticket sales for next year's Games when the official ticketing website buckled under heavy demand.

But London's experience has not deterred Sochi Olympics chiefs, who are shortly to launch the tender for the 2014 Games ticketing agent.

"I believe we will use the best practices and the same approach in our ticketing campaign," Chernshenko said.

Asked if that meant using a ballot system, he added: "We are certainly going to use it."

 Well, straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.   And there are other items in the first article I linked on aroundtherings.net, namely that Chernyshenko says that Sochi 2014 is on pace to have some venues completed even by the end of this year.  Also, he reports that Sochi 2014 has already raised $1.1 billion toward the projected $2 billion operating expense to run the Games and that no private money will be used.  Then again, when the cost of the Games is north of $30 billion, does anyone really give a shit about operating costs?  Though I guess it must feel good to say the words 'privately' and 'financed' in the same sentence; not often you can say that about any operation in Russia.