150,000 more Olympic tickets go on sale June 6

[Yume-sama]

Well they've disappeared. Some lucky idiot got my supposedly sold out tickets!

[johnjimbc]

Well, all in all I'm pleased. I managed to get a pair of tickets to 2 different prelim round men's hockey and a pair of tickets to 1 prelim women's hockey games. I also got a few pairs of tickets to different night victory celebrations.

I could actually have gotten more victory celebration tickets but canceled them since when I realized they would overlap with the pair of prelim women's luge tickets up at Whistler I got during the second-chance 1st phase window last December (that's a mouthful).

I just feel fortunate today because it was a juggling act even trying to log in. I was catching a flight out of Montreal back to Vancouver and knew I'd have a limited amount of time anyway. I had pretty much decided to not even try; but at the last minute I changed my mind, found a plug in a coffee shop, got a 1-day wireless pass, and tried to log in at precisely 10 am Vancouver time. It took about 1 hour 45 minutes to get through the virtual waiting room. I was nearing the end of the window before I had to leave for the airport when I finally got in. I had expected from the experience last December that it would probably take a while so at least I was mentally prepared.

I tried and tried and tried to pull the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies and any available Whistler events, almost all of which were still showing up at first. I must have tried to snag ski jumping tickets 20 times. But nada.

I actually logged back in at the airport almost an hour later and got the last of the prelim men's hockey round tickets that I was able to get. It was one of the few events even showing at the time, which surprised me.
__________________

People have speculated, but I think I have a good idea about the events in general. The moment a person got in and pulled a ticket, it would essentially "lock" those tickets until the person checked out successfully (within the time constraint to complete the purchase of course) or deleted them (like I did with the one victory ceremony) or (as some folks unfortunately encountered) the credit card transaction failed for any reason. They were always cautioning that it would try once and only once to make the authorization.

Multiply that by tens of thousands of people on the system, and at any one time you have a lot of "locked" tickets that have not completed the whole process of becoming a fully paid ticket order.

I also think they wouldn't actually remove a session from showing as "available" until absolutely every single ticket was processed as a completely authorized purchase. That's why you could still see some tickets hypothetically available on events yet never seem to actually be able to capture them when you tried to get them. I imagine a lot of people wasted a lot of key strokes on events they really didn't have much of a chance of getting. But if you were that lucky person who tried at the right moment, it was probably worth it.

Near the end of my second log-in at the airport, it became visibly clear that events were filling up because I could actually see the list of available events shrink dramatically each time I did a search.

At least the entire system didn't crash as it did in December, or at least it didn't appear as if it did.

I had such low expectations this time around that I'm actually pretty pleased.

[mr.x]

I could've gotten Class A seats for the Closing Ceremonies....but at $775 each, not worth it.

[johnjimbc]

At the risk of sounding totally desperate , I thought I'd toss this out there.

We gave up the idea a while back, but my very first date with my partner 16 years ago this coming Feb 12 (opening night of our Vancouver Olympics) was watching the opening ceremonies of the 1994 Oslo Olympics via TV over dinner at my studio apartment in Ohio at the time. The opening ceremony was actually on Feb 12 that year as well (strangely enough). Well, it obviously worked out pretty well since we've been a couple since then .

So we originally had high hopes of somehow getting two tickets to the opening ceremonies, as a sort of seeing them in person as our own little anniversary celebration.

So should anyone - ha ha - actually have two extra tickets by some miracle and have no one else to offer them to - again ha ha - please let me know. I'd be thrilled to find a way to get two tickets for us since we haven't had the luck to get any through all these initial rounds of ticket sales.

Alternatively, if someone hears of a nice experience for that night - a full dinner somewhere while watching the opening ceremonies or something sort of cool, that might be fun as well. We're probably going to make it a couple thing for just that night.

As it is, we'll be fine eating pizza and watching them at home, for it's own nostalgia . But thought I'd toss the idea out there just to cover our bases.

Feel free to send any ideas my way - thanks.

Cheers.

[Yume-sama]

Originally Posted by mr.x

I could've gotten Class A seats for the Closing Ceremonies....but at $775 each, not worth it.

Hmm, I got desperate and ended up paying that.

Do you think the Opening Ceremonies will be worth seeing? Or is that a TV kind of thing.

I honestly think I'd be bored out of my fricken mind during the 1h+ march of nations.

[Yume-sama]

Originally Posted by johnjimbc

At the risk of sounding totally desperate , I thought I'd toss this out there.

We gave up the idea a while back, but my very first date with my partner 16 years ago this coming Feb 12 (opening night of our Vancouver Olympics) was watching the opening ceremonies of the 1994 Oslo Olympics via TV over dinner at my studio apartment in Ohio at the time. The opening ceremony was actually on Feb 12 that year as well (strangely enough). Well, it obviously worked out pretty well since we've been a couple since then .

So we originally had high hopes of somehow getting two tickets to the opening ceremonies, as a sort of seeing them in person as our own little anniversary celebration.

So should anyone - ha ha - actually have two extra tickets by some miracle and have no one else to offer them to - again ha ha - please let me know. I'd be thrilled to find a way to get two tickets for us since we haven't had the luck to get any through all these initial rounds of ticket sales.

Alternatively, if someone hears of a nice experience for that night - a full dinner somewhere while watching the opening ceremonies or something sort of cool, that might be fun as well. We're probably going to make it a couple thing for just that night.

As it is, we'll be fine eating pizza and watching them at home, for it's own nostalgia . But thought I'd toss the idea out there just to cover our bases.

Feel free to send any ideas my way - thanks.

Cheers.

Don't have tickets, but you can see BC Place from my balcony if you want...

[mr.x]

Originally Posted by Yume-sama

Hmm, I got desperate and ended up paying that.

Do you think the Opening Ceremonies will be worth seeing? Or is that a TV kind of thing.

I honestly think I'd be bored out of my fricken mind during the 1h+ march of nations.

With that said, if i did have some extra cash i would have definitely bought those closing ceremony tickets.

I have a friend that was lucky enough to see the Beijing Opening....obviously, there's no comparison. But the atmosphere will be surreal, assuming the business types play along (something like 2/3rds of the opening/closing/men's gold tix have been assigned to the sponsors).

As for the show itself, it'll be theatrical show (similar to Salt Lake, Torino, and especially Athens) and to an extent maybe even Sydney given it's David Atkins afterall. Watching the ceremonies is usually a theatrical thing, the best seats are actually somewhere in the middle of the stands (upper A, lower B). I highly doubt it'll be a slow ceremony....while it looked utterly amazing on tv, the Athens Opening was a snore for spectators....and the Athens Closing just went on and on and on with that never ending concert that started with a bang but ended with a whimper.

I won't be buying ceremonies tix, assuming i become a ceremonies volunteer. But if i were trying to buy, i'd go for either the B or C tix.

The parade of nations is just under an hour long for the Winter Games.

[johnjimbc]

Thanks Yuma. Well, if you do decide you'll be too bored and managed to get two tickets to the Opening Ceremonies, let me know .

We are in the same building after all, though we have the north corner view so can't see BC Place from our unit.

[Yume-sama]

I did end up with tickets to the final Victory Ceremony on the 26th.

My logic was the chances of their being a real musical act and not Michael Buble were better since it is the LAST one.

I'm going to try and SEVERELY hint at one of my friends who is in the "sponsor" pool that I don't have Opening Ceremony tickets

[DKaz]

I logged in 9:59 and got bobsleigh 4 men finals, curling womens preliminary, and womens Canada vs Sweden.

[Yume-sama]

Cheater! Clicking A Minute Early!

[CBeats]

I signed in at 1:45 and the only things left were hockey, curling, and victory ceremonies - boy, was that a disappointment. I was hoping for events at Cypress because it's so close, but everything was sold out! At least I didn't have to use that stupid waiting room...
Anyway I got tickets to 3 hockey games: mens' quarterfinals, womens' semifinals, and some other game. Plus final victory ceremony tickets on the 26th, those were only $22 each!

[wrenegade]

Yeah I was a retard and forgot to login until after 1 o'clock. There were a bunch of curling and prelim hockey games left (nothing with Canada obviously). I really wanted to grab some short track tickets, oh well, my fault. I already did ok the first time round and have some hockey games and freestyle skiing.

[sacrifice333]

Just took a peak online and there's still a lot of tickets available to curling qualification rounds, prelim hockey, even women's ice hockey medal games!

Go pick some up... I'm sure you won't regret it come 2010!

[mr.x]

Whistler 2010 nightly victory ceremonies ticket details expected this fall

David Burke [email protected]

About 150,000 tickets to Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic sporting events and ceremonies, as well as “many thousands” of tickets to nightly “victory celebrations” will go on sale next weekend, but tickets to victory celebrations in Whistler won’t be among them.

While Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic organizers (VANOC) have decided to make the medals ceremonies at the Whistler Celebration Plaza ticketed events, they haven’t yet worked out the details, Caley Denton, VANOC vice president of ticketing and consumer marketing, said on Friday (May 29).

“Our team has been flipping on and off and working on getting it all nailed down, and until we do that we won’t release those tickets. I imagine that won’t be until the fall,” Denton said during a media conference call.

Tickets to the Vancouver victory celebrations will cost $22, and the first sale of those tickets will take place on Saturday (June 6), the same day that Phase II of Canadian ticket sales for sporting events and the opening and closing ceremonies occurs. While this won’t be the last chance for Canadians to purchase tickets, Denton warned that that number of tickets available this fall will be quite limited.

“This is a major release of tickets before the 2010 Winter Games, and is the best remaining opportunity for Canadian Olympic fans to get their hands on tickets,” he said.

Whereas the first phase of ticket sales saw 120 of the 170 sporting events go to a lottery, this phase of ticket sales will be more of a straight sale, with one twist: Those logging on to www.vancouver2010.com on Saturday just after 10 a.m. to purchase tickets will be placed in a “virtual waiting room” off of the VANOC site, then randomly selected for admission to the ticketing site. The waiting room is meant to ensure that the Vancouver 2010 site doesn’t crash because of the expected high volume of traffic.

“People need to be patient. We expect there will be high demand on Saturday,” Denton said.

While tickets are available to all events — including “hundreds” to the gold-medal men’s hockey game and 5,000 each to the opening and closing ceremonies — purchasers will be limited to four events per order, and in some cases will be limited to four tickets per event.

Denton advised those with existing ticket accounts with VANOC to go on the site beforehand and ensure that their logins and passwords still work. Newcomers who wish to open new accounts before Saturday may also do so by visiting the site, he said.

As before, Visa is the only online purchasing option — but non-Visa-cardholders have the option of purchasing tickets offline using cheques or money orders, Denton said.

[jlousa]

Surprised you guys had so much trouble, we were in within minutes, and we were able to get back in almost at will within an hour.
We scored, opening, closing cermonies, 4 different medal cermonies, 3 out of 4 QF mens hockey, could've had all 4 but the ubc game conflicted timewiser with game 2 and 4 so we backed out. We also go tickets to both mens SF games.
Didn't try for the gold medal game but I'm pretty sure we would've been out of luck on that one.
All in I spent just over $6K but I received everything I wanted.

[Yume-sama]

You got very lucky!

[jlousa]

Yeah the next day my wife won a great bid on the Shaw Olympic auction as well. Guess it was our lucky weekend. Now I just have to work even more hours to pay for all this stuff.

[mr.x]

I hate you.

[Yume-sama]

Originally Posted by mr.x

I hate you.

Let's find out where he lives. You can have half...