How to: GET OLYMPIC TICKETS
Before all the Olympic buzz I never wanted tickets - but the other day I wanted some specific tickets, which of course were completely "sold out". They've started releasing more and more tickets, and in this Tumblr I'll quickly show you how I was able to secure my tickets through the official site with little complications.
You'll need
Computer with Google Chrome Web Browser
An Olympic account
A Visa card to pay for the Olympic Tickets
An add-on to monitor page-changes
Patience
Download Google Chrome https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/
Download & Install the Page Monitor Extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pemhgklkefakciniebenbfclihhmmfcd
Click Add To Chrome.
Create an Olympic Account https://www.tickets.london2012.com/member/registration
Search for an Olympic Event. This is where it get a little annoying... In order to monitor a page, you must know the URL of the olympic event. I have used the example below of the gold medal basketball match on Aug 11. As you can see below I have the full URL, and I was able to click through to this page because tickets are AVAILABLE. If there were no tickets I would not be able to reach this page from searching. I'm afraid I have no idea how they calculate the ID of the event (this one is 0000455ACA0109E6) and every event is different, but if you have this URL - check your history! - then you can use it in Page Monitor to automatically refresh and alert you whenever tickets become available again.
http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455ACA0109E6
As we can see, tickets are WAY too expensive, but initially one could purchase tickets for this event for £50. Luckily we have the URL to this page, and we can monitor it, allowing Google Chrome to alert us whenever there is a change in ticket status. My Experience
Tickets were available for about 5-10 minutes at 10am
Tickets were then available again in the afternoon for less than 5 minutes.
Be sure to add to cart and get to checkout ASAP - you then have only a few mins to pay.
Payment must be with Visa (I think)
I'll demonstrate with a page that is sold out, and that I did manage to get tickets to this one for £40, not £95 for the last remaining seats.. You won't have a chance to click into the page because tickets are "Currently Unavailable" however clicking this link will get you to that page: http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455AC9FD09CE
To monitor this page, I need to click on the new icon which installed with Page Monitor, and then click "Monitor This Page"
I can then Right Click on the same Icon, go to Options, and change the frequency of the page-refresh. Checking pages at an interval of 1 minute is fine, and allowed by the LOCOG system - I haven't tried any less, but hitting refresh constantly will pull up errors. (hence why I decided to look for another solution)
SUCCESS! I used the Guardian page to demonstrate how it works, but as soon as there is a page-change, an alert box will pop up and a sound ring. NOW QUICKLY LOG-IN AND PURCHASE YOUR F*** TICKETS!
Under some circumstances tickets have been available for events EVEN when the search page shows No Available Tickets. (Yes, that's how STUPID the ticketing system is at the London 2012 Olympics!) I could have been more thorough with this guide, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Here Unfortunately there's no feature to email when tickets are available, but if you're good with code I'm sure you'll be able to mess about with it.
Finally if anyone can help out with specific EVENT ID numbers for events, (or if you can crack the code) that would be very helpful!
GOOD LUCK SNAPPING UP YOUR LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC TICKETS!
LINK UPDATES:
Basketball: Great Britain v China & France v Nigeria
Tickets were available for Great Britain on MONDAY (£65) for a short time this morning. Continue monitoring this page for any changed to availability. http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455AC9FE09D0 *** Searching for the event will give "currently unavailable" but there are indeed tickets at this link as of 10.50am
AU RUS Basketball http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455AC9FD09CE Womens Gold Basketball http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455ACA0109E6 GB v China Basketball http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455AC9FE09D0 Closing Ceremony http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455ACF400E76 Beach Volleyball (Search) http://www.tickets.london2012.com/browse?form=search&tab=oly&sport=8199&event=&venue=&fromDate=&toDate=&morning=1&afternoon=1&evening=1&show_available_events=1 Table Tennis (Search) http://www.tickets.london2012.com/browse?form=search&tab=oly&sport=8227&event=&venue=&fromDate=&toDate=&morning=1&afternoon=1&evening=1&show_available_events=1 Athletics Discus, Hurdles etc http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455AC9A1095A Womens Boxing http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455ACA4A0A6A Sync Swimming http://www.tickets.london2012.com/eventdetails?id=0000455ACE9B0CD2