Tag Archives: Olympic

Anything to do with (intially) the London 2012 Olympics

They’re here, They’re here!

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Finally my Cosport tickets have arrived!  I’ve been tracking them via FedEx since Thursday and then this morning I noticed they were out for delivery.  Just before I came to work there was a FedEx guy outside my block of flats giving directions to someone and then he wandered off!  After a slightly mad dash around the development to find him (he was still trying to help the lost student as it turned out) I got my package.

After all the problems that I’d heard about, I did open it slightly concerned about what I would find.  Luckily for me I have all the tickets that I bought and they are EVEN TOGETHER so I won’t have to wave to my other half from across the stadium for the closing ceremony!  There are also Travelcards but no Spectator Guides, but I can live with that!  My closing ceremony tickets are from Norway (at least its EU!) but my Canoe Slalom ones are hospitality ones – naughty Cosport!

So I at least can breathe a huge sigh of relief that these tickets have arrived and they are pretty much ok.  For all those who have seats not together, haven’t arrived at all, or incomplete orders I feel for you and hope you get it sorted before the Games!

Two weeks until London 2012!

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Today marks two weeks until the opening ceremony for London 2012, and I’m already quite excited about it and the two (plus!) weeks of sport 🙂  I’m also quite excited about the fact the Torch Relay finally comes to my home town on Monday next week.  Unfortunately I didn’t get tickets to the evening celebration, but hope to get to the torch route and wave my Team GB scarf and flag!  Now whats the weather forecast… 😉

Cosport ticket update!

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So after my earlier vent, I kept checking my emails and tracking and eventually had an email from Fedex to say that I needed to contact their UK office.  Fine, so I rang them up only to find that they had been given the wrong flat number (great!) and that they had not picked up the package so I needed to contact Cosport.  Having not had a reply to my original email, I figured all I could do was to ring them which unfortunately meant calling internationally to the US.

Luckily Planet Talk gave me a much cheaper than BT to do this so I by dialling a different number before the international number and on my third attempt (first the number didn’t work, then I waited over 10 minutes on hold and had an urgent phone call I had to deal with) I finally managed to speak to someone.  Basically their story was that they created the shipping label before doing final checks and realised that the order was incomplete and therefore the package was pulled before it could be picked up.  A simple email to me would have cleared all that up when it was realised but that seems to have not even occurred to them!  They got the final shipment from Locog yesterday (apparently) and said that they should be shipped out by close of business Friday and I should have them by Monday.

I mentioned about the address being wrong and Mike from Cosport said he was going to go over and get another shipping label put on the package, or at least that ‘he would try’ and get it pulled and another label created.  Surely if it hasn’t been sent out yet that should be possible right?

Having been out for the evening and feeling slightly less anxious about it, I got back to discover a new shipping notification notice and this time the package HAS BEEN PICKED UP!  Woo hoo!!!  Now we’ll just have to see if they deliver it to the right address, and then whether my tickets are even next to each other…

Cosport Olympic Ticket Fiasco

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Its beginning to look like one of the multi-country ticket agencies for the London 2012 Olympics has messed up quite badly in a number of ways, and as some of my most expensive tickets are coming from there I’m quite nervous!  The company Cosport (and its sister company Jet Set Sports) are responsible for American, Australian and Austrian sales (amongst others), and as an EU citizen I took advantage of the Austrian sales to buy some Olympic tickets from them for Canoe Slalom and Closing Ceremony – neither of them being cheap tickets.

This was back in July last year, and I was very happy to have got hold of them and patiently waited whilst Locog started sending out tickets, and other EU distributors sent theres out or said how you could get hold of them (i.e. pick up only in London for Sportsworld), and then finally there was news that Cosport would be sending out via FedEx and we should wait for tracking information.  Eventually I got mine, and thats when things started to look a bit odd for me.

Even though I received a shipment notification email from FedEx dated the 9th July, it was from Jet Set Sports (which is the american branch of the company but hey maybe they are sending all their tickets from there) it said anticipated shipping date 7th July – how can they anticipate to ship before they’ve received the notification that theres a package for them to deliver?  Still it said delivery was 10th July so I thought ok, it must all be ok.

10th July came and went with no tickets or update, and by the morning of the 11th the tracking site no longer had a delivery date on it so I started to get quite worried.  The email from Cosport saying that deliveries were being organised said to contact via email on the 11th if no delivery information had been sent so I thought I would contact them to ask what was going on.  One email duly sent, but no acknowledgement or reply.

By the evening I took to twitter to see if anyone else was having problems and to my dismay not only were other people having delivery problems like mine some people weren’t getting all their tickets or had tickets that weren’t even together!  So now I not only don’t know if I’m even going to get my tickets, or if me and my other half will even be sitting together at the closing ceremony – how rubbish is that?!!!!  Also, some people have reported that even though they are EU citizens they are getting tickets that are allocated to American or Australian Olympic sites – surely that wasn’t allowed?

So this morning (the 12th), I’ve still not had a reply from Cosport so I’ve contacted FedEx via their website to ask what is going on.  Unlike Cosport, I’ve had an immediate copy of what I sent to my email address as well as an automated reply saying it was being sent to the relevant person so now its just waiting for America to wake up and go to work so I can find out what is going on I guess.

I don’t like the uncertainty, especially as the tickets weren’t cheap, and I don’t like the fact that Cosport aren’t very good at responding to an email address they told us to use so I can’t even tell if this is going to be resolved.  Its only just over 2 weeks to the games – come on people sort yourselves out!

Cosport tickets are on their way!

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Some of my most expensive tickets for the Olympics are coming from Cosport (the EU seller for Austria), and they were supposed to start sending out their tickets last week so I’ve been getting a bit nervous.  Thankfully today I received an email to say that a shipping request had been sent to FedEx which is what they are using to send the tickets so I presume that is them.  Not totally sure though as the sender is apparently JetSet Sports Holdings and also although the notification was sent first thing this morning FedEx don’t seem to have picked up the package yet – very bizarre!

Unfortunately I won’t be in to receive the tickets so I might have to wait until the end of the week to find out for sure – I’ll be a bit nervous until I actually have them in my hand!

Its next month!!!

London 2012

After waiting for so long, it now seems a bit unreal that the Olympics are NEXT MONTH!  Tickets have started to be sent out (I’ll pick up my first lot from the post office tomorrow) and I received the Official Programme yesterday – can’t wait!  I did manage to panic myself this evening when I thought I hadn’t actually bought some of the tickets I thought I had, but I eventually worked out I’d got them from another EU provider that I’d completely forgotten about – doh!

London 2012 here I come! 😀

Collecting EU Olympic tickets

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To get all the tickets that I have for the Olympics (which before you start getting annoyed, means that at least 7 other people who wanted tickets but didn’t get are able to get them are able to come to the games), I bought from a couple of other EU ticket sellers – one from France (run by Eventeam), and the other Denmark (run by Sportsworld).

Now despite being a bit annoying to deal with, Eventeam are going to courier their tickets to everyone just like London 2012.  However, despite being a British company, Sportsworld want everyone to go to their London ticket office and collect them in person.  I’ve just had an email detailing the dates that they are open, and its only just before the games so I’m going to have to make a special trip to London for them as I need them the first day – dagnabit!  I did know about only being able to collect them when I booked them but thought I’d be able to go a bit in advance.  Best talk to the boss about having an afternoon off work so I can go get them…

UPDATE : Whilst working out the best time for me to get the tickets, and realising that I needed them for the first day I’m in London (for Archery) I finally read the bottom of the email thoroughly (I know, I shouldn’t skip things!) and it turns out that I can nominate someone else to pick them up for me – woo hoo!  As t’other half commutes into London every day she is kindly offered to go pick them up for me – result!

Knew it wouldn’t last

London 2012,

I had all the best intentions yesterday – I wasn’t going to buy anymore tickets!  But as 11am came around, I just couldn’t help myself and there I was on the website seeing what was available…  Rationalizing it to myself, I’ve gone for a couple more events on days when I was already either travelling through London or at the Olympic Park but was only doing one event that day.  Hence I’m now going to see the GB Womens Football team vs Brazil (should be some match) at Wembley, and also going to see Handball in the Copper Box 🙂  I think with the Paralympics tickets I got the other day I’m now going to most venues in the Olympic Park at one time or another 🙂  Of course, the only main one I’m not going to during either games is the Velodrome, but luckily we went to the test event (which was fab and you can see pictures of here  http://www.flickr.com/photos/zeetha/sets/72157629491630759/) so I don’t mind *too* much!

More Tickets available!

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Today more Olympic tickets become available, but after much thought I’ve decided not to go for any more even though it might mean I could try more venues and more sports.  I’m going to enough, and I want to pace myself and also experience what sounds like its going to be EPIC coverage from the BBC! 🙂

I have seen online via Twitter and forums that many people are complaining that they didn’t get tickets, and whilst I feel a few are justified (i.e. have supported and gone to sports for years but didn’t get tickets for them, or are actually families of athletes) in most cases I feel this is a just a touch of sour grapes.  For something that is SO popular, there were always going to be people who missed out and most people wanted to go to the popular events only (i.e. cycling, athletics, finals only).  Also, at any event like this there are always going to be lots of corporate and package tickets – thats just life I’m afraid!  If you are truly just going for ‘the experience’ as so many people say they are, then go to some of the other events or even the preliminaries.

For example today, there are loads of Volleyball events available but I bet they won’t sell out very fast.  People will eventually buy them but will whinge about ‘only’ getting tickets to ‘a poor’ event.  Its not a poor event, its got world class athletes who spend a lot of their time and (in a lot of cases their own) money preparing for just this moment and they deserve everyones support AND people will find that the atmosphere at all of these events will probably be much better than they are expecting as watching sport live is completely different to watching it on TV!  Yes its disappointing not to get the tickets you want, and yes its disappointing not to be going to the ‘headline’ events but just be happy to get tickets to the GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH and go enjoy!!

</rant over>