2012 ticket resale site returns but buyers wait
LONDON 2012 ticket-holders can legally sell their unwanted seats once again after Olympics chiefs finally reopened a significantly scaled-down version of their crippled website yesterday.
However, those wanting to buy the second-hand Games tickets are still not able to use the site, which buckled under the weight of unexpectedly high traffic just hours after being launched on 6 January.
Instead London 2012 organisers have pledged to buy up every unwanted ticket at face value and put them all back on sale again in April.
Games bosses faced fierce criticism after the original ticket resale site collapsed and remained offline for 11 days. Their decision to launch a more basic version comes after they were unable to satisfactorily repair the original platform, which was created by Ticketmaster.
“We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by the suspension of our ticketing resale platform,” said London 2012 commercial director Chris Townsend.
“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.”
He added: “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.”
Ticketholders have until 6pm on 3 February to sell their seats back to London 2012.
Organisers said the peer-to-peer sale site crashed as 250,000 would-be buyers were chasing tickets at any one time.
They added that of 17,000 unwanted seats made available before the meltdown, some 7,000 were successfully sold.