First Come, First Served: London 2012 Putting 900K Tickets Up For Sale
Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 06:49PM Special to NYSportsJournalism
May 10, 2012: With less than 80 days to the Opening Ceremonies for the 2012 Summer Olympics, the London Olympic Games Organizing Committee said it would put 900,000 contingency tickets up for sale.
The tickets will be available beginning 11AM (London time) on May 11.
According to LOCOG, tickets will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis "exclusively to approximately one million people who applied in previous rounds of Olympic ticket sales and were not successful in securing a ticket."
First priority will be given to the 20,000 people who were unsuccessful in the initial Olympic ballot application and then unsuccessful again when they applied in the second chance sales. LOCOG said that these people would have received a notification on June 26, 2011 that their second chance sales application was unsuccessful.
Only Visa debit, credit and prepaid cards can be used to purchase tickets. Visa is an official partner of the International Olympic Committee and the London Games.
An exclusive pre-sale for these individuals will see tickets available for all events, including limited tickets for Opening and Closing Ceremonies, from May 11-12.
The one million people who applied in the initial ballot but were unsuccessful will then have an exclusive five-day sales period. The schedule for this period is:
May 13: Beach Volleyball, Football, Hockey, Tennis and Wrestling
May 14: Athletics, Canoe Slalom, Canoe Sprint, Shooting, Swimming, Track Cycling, Volleyball and Weightlifting
May 15: Diving, Equestrian, Handball, Swimming (Marathon), Synchronized Swimming, Table Tennis and Water Polo
May 16: Badminton, Basketball (North Greenwich Arena sessions), Boxing, Fencing, Gymnastics, Judo, Sailing and Taekwondo
May 17: Archery, Basketball (Basketball Arena sessions), BMX, Modern Pentathlon, Mountain Bike, Road Cycling, Rowing, Triathlon and Olympic Park tickets

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Unsold tickets on each day will be carried forward to the next day’s sales, with any tickets unsold during this period going back on general sale on May 23.
It was also revealed that remaining tickets for the Paralympic Games will go on sale May 21 — 100 days before the Paralympic Opening Ceremony.