Like many people.  By many, I mean the majority of people who applied for Olympic tickets, I was left irritated by the whole ticketing process.  I did eventually get 3 for the Gymnastics – all at full price.  I’ll be taking my 2 children.  I know I’m in the lucky ones. The majority of people didn’t get any and had months and months of time and expectaions mucked about – the only thing they have in return is spin.

I put in a bid that went into £000s for a variety of tickets – hoping to get some. I was hugely disappointed originally, as were my children (remember the legacy thing!) when we originally believed that we would not go either. Many others that disappointment is worse – they are not as lucky me. There is of course the additional wind up of the months of not knowing, keeping funds in an account just in case one day someone decides to allocate me some tickets and draw down on my request.

Disappointments happen.  More people applied that tickets were available.  That is the answer we are being told.  No lets deal with the truth.  It is yet another example of the complete lack of consistent strategy and consideration for what this Olympics is “supposedly” trying to achieve.

The  bright people at Locog  do not seem bright enough to understand that the random ballot is not the same as being fair. Random is that….random. It means that we could have had 100,000 people who bid for lots of tickets getting them all and leaving many more with nothing.  It could mean everybody gets just a few tickets. Both are random occurrances.  The second one, however, is also fairer and consistent with the supposed objectives.   How difficult would it have been to have started the ticket allocation by giving everybody who applied 2 tickets and then redrawing the remainder? How difficult would it be if in addition to selecting tickets that you had to give them a preference? If you put swimming down as 1 you would be more likely to get it.  If you put it as 10 – you were less likely etc.  How difficult would it have been to provide a geographical preference filter.  Given that I live near Greenwich Park and I’m (a) paying for the change going on for Equestrian events in local taxes, (b)having the park I walk my dog and play with my children disrupted for ages before and (c) ruined for years after with no legacy (it is £millions spent for a temporary solution)… how hard would it be to weight the event I could walk to so that I had a better chance of getting tickets?

Sir Seb Coe has got more similarly to Sept Blatter everyday.  When he faces the public at interviews you can see him get irritated by their questions – rather than actually listen to what they have said and change things. Seb is driven, but also makes up his mind about what is being done.  He listens to few people – least of all the people the games is supposedly for.  His pronunciations and public statements are things generated for the moment he is dealing with.  If you ever look at the narrative of the Sir Seb Coe story of why we are doing the games, how decisions on who will get the stadium after the event and now the manner in which tickets are allocated the story isn’t consistent.  To use a sporting analogy  – “the goal posts move”.   There was an independent body to decide on how the stadium would be used. Lord Seb had no vote on it.  However, he couldn’t help but be all over the media saying that he’d probably prefer a West Ham type bid rather than Spurs.  In any company when a decision is made on a tender you declare any interest and are not allowed to do, say or contact anyone to affect the outcome.  It seems it does not apply for the Olympics and Lord Seb Coe.

I have written another blog about the fallacy, inconsistency, lack of evidence and lack of executional ideas to deliver the “legacy strategy”.  Lest we forget, the £3bn that we originally bid for The Olympics (that has now grown to £9bn spend) was all about getting more young people to play sport.  They would – the unproven argument goes – be inspired by watching and being part of the Olympics in London and take up more sport.

Silly me, but I would have thought that to deliver on that strategy then the more people – especially young people – who got to attend the games the better.  Had people not got their tickets, but all young people had they would get it.  Had they charged even more for the tickets – but used the money so that more young people could have subsidised tickets they would have got it too.  people might be frustrated at not going, but they’d get behind the idea.  Perhaps lots of young people have got tickets – but it certainly was not a big part of the policy (more of a PR nod) and it isn’t announced. If it was catered for ….then only at minor events.  We certainly are not going to be told what the real numbers are for who applied for what tickets and how it broke down by age or effort.  Nope, facts and figures are carefully chosen and spun to suit in Locog.  We hear that 10,000 troops and their families will get tickets. Good idea – but why find out only after the ticket anger breaks?  Simple, it is positive spin timing to deflect the cock up on the people’s tickets.

The ideal of a London Olympics to inspire young people and the nation has long ago become a subset of justifying the PR spin about it. Having spent the money, the primary objective in the decisions is not getting young people playing sport.  It is to get the money back and have the event fully attended. The reason so many applied is we were spun on the demand to get us to oversubscribe. The money has been sucked out of us – but with no idea or control over what we may get.

When so many people are disappointed against what they expected, at this point, the claimed objective is then revealed as no more than words.  Politicians conceived the idea for the Olympics bid, the manifesto promise has somehow got forgotten when he came to office. Politicians notoriously only listen to the electorate in the run up to elections and then only use it to say what they want to hear. No doubt the games will be ready on time, the seats sold etc.  Getting it done is not the same as getting it right.  The ticket allocation fiasco is the latest example.  Clearly it is a cock up – but I don’t hear anyone admitting it at Locog.

The claimed objective and legacy of the London 2012 Olympics calls for a ticket strategy that has more people attend not less and especially more young people. It clearly doesn’t do it.  So it is incompetent, unfair and further evidence that what was said to win the Olympics bid were words only.  After all, if we were really bothered about more young people playing sport, would you really spend £9bn on the Olympics?