Public will have to wait until April to buy unwanted Olympic tickets

Tuesday, January 17, 2012
12:14 PM

LONDON 2012 will re-launch their Olympic ticket re-sale web site this afternoon, however, the facility will not be available to the public until April.

The system has changed and no longer will members of the public be able to sell their tickets to others on a first-come, first-served basis.

Instead, London 2012 will buy back the unwanted tickets over the next fortnight, from 3pm today, and sell them again in April.

The alterations have been made after the computer system which enabled the facility encountered problems 11 days ago - the same day that it went live.

Organisers will not confirm how the tickets will be re-sold until closer to the time.

LOCOG commercial director Chris Townsend said: “We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by the suspension of our ticketing resale platform.

“We made a commitment to our customers to give them a safe, secure and legal way of selling Olympic and Paralympic tickets which they are no longer able to use.

“We are delivering on that commitment, and will buy any tickets that customers are no longer able to use at face value until February 3.

“Every ticket we purchase from the public will be offered back to the public from April. We believe this system - purchasing the tickets back from customers now, and offering them again from April, will result in a better customer experience for everyone.

“Our main objective has always been to provide a platform for people to re-sell their tickets in a safe, secure and legal way. This is the right solution, at the right time given we also have test event tickets on sale currently.”

The re-sale site was unable to cope with demand on the first day, leaving tens of thousands of people frustrated. The new tickets will be sold at the same time as the one million contingency go on sale.