Synchronized Swimming

So out of 8 events and over 600 pounds worth of ticket applications, it turns out that I have only got 2 tickets to see the synchronized swimming at the 2012 Olympics. An event that, I might add, has not even sold out and will be available to buy tickets for starting tomorrow. So aside from me picking what is clearly an unpopular event, I really didn't get much. Don't get me wrong- I'm excited to go to an event, and I was always keen on synchronized swimming. It's sort of like cirque du soleil- how can that be bad? On the other hand, it's an event that didn't sell out. So while I got tickets because I clearly picked an unpopular event, I was also sort of guaranteed these tickets. Anything else I applied for that was actually competitive, I didn't get.

Well fine. Whatever. I'll be excited about my one event. I think it's being held at the aquatic center which means it will be at the main Olympic park which is close to my house and that means I'll have an excuse to go experience it. I've never been to an Olympics before, so it's impossible not to be excited about it, even if I wish I could have seen more and think that there was clearly something very wrong with the ticketing process.

I know people who got all the tickets they applied for, and I know people who got no tickets they applied for. I heard some statistic that if you didn't account for the price banding, based on how many people applied and how many tickets were available, everyone should have gotten 3 tickets. So it seems really poor that some people got all the tickets and something like over a million people got no tickets. I can't believe that this was the best possible system or that there wasn't an alternative that would have been more fair.

We'll see what happens over the course of the next year. My guess is these will be the only tickets I have and the only event I go to see. But you never know who has tickets and might be offering one to friends, etc etc. I think I can be happy because I'm going to get to see something- even if it's something no one else seems to have wanted to see. If I hadn't gotten any tickets at all, I think I would have been pretty pissed off.