volshy

URGENT - On behalf of someone from the UK who can't go - *** SPARE RIO OLYMPIC TICKETS *** - they are in hand - souvenir tickets. Can be posted from the UK today or handed over by me in Rio, subject to travel arrangements. Boxing (Men), Gymnastic Trampoline (Women), Beach Volleyball (Men/Women), Water Polo (Women), Diving (Men) 07-Aug-16 17:00 BX004 B 2 Men's Lightweight (60kg): preliminaries Men's Welterweight (69kg): preliminaries Men's Light Heavyweight (81kg): preliminaries 09-Aug-16 17:00 BX008 B 2 Men's Lightweight (60kg): preliminaries Men's Middleweight (75kg): preliminaries Men's Super Heavyweight (+91kg): preliminaries 12-Aug-16 14:00 GT001 C 2 Women's Qualification Routine, Final 13-Aug-16 23:00 BV026 C 2 Men's and/or Women's - Round of 16 15-Aug-16 14:10 WP022 C 2 Women's Quarter-finals 20-Aug-16 11:00 DV015 D 2 Men's 10m Platform Semi-final Will cost original price (face value) - but open to negotiation. Please let me know - reply or Private Message .... ASAP - preferably before 15:00 UK time today Thanks John / volshy

Hey cece I have to re-iterate what several have said to here. If you really want to go and really want those GA tix, you'll get them. And not necessarily from scalpers. Re: more official sales, there's a LONG LONG way to go yet, but they key thing for you is be a little flexible re: deciding on your travel plans. Kavita was right about the next sale in Europe - HOLLAND on Monday, in the morning (Dutch time - say 09:00 CET, so, 03:00 EST - possibly!) Your contacts in Germany will legally be allowed to buy tickets in that Dutch sale. No problem whatseover - UK fans bought from the Dertour/German sale this week. And DON'T GIVE UP on Dertour - they'll have other sales over the next 12 months. As will the Dutch, Spanish, UK (Cosport), French. You'll require plenty of patience and persistence. Cheers John

Hey drupha, that's really kind, but I'm a little misunderstood to be honest - there are WAY more experienced and prolific ticket-buyers than me - way, way more. All I've done. along with several key others [*waves to Matt* :-) ] is to be free with information regarding key ATR sales. :-)

Easy - because of EU law, any EU citizen can buy something on sale in any other EU country, including Olympic tickets :-) Nothing to do with citizenship either. All to do with residency. So if you're Japanese, but living in Spain, you can buy tickets from Dertour in Germany :-) And they have an English version of their website. If decide to buy, then I recommend choosing "transfer" and your means of payment. If you get an email from them with an invoice, that means the tickets are yours but make you sure you pay them as soon as possible. Good luck! :-)

Hi fantome Please don't give up just yet. Where are you based? Cosport may not be your only option. If you have any friends/family/contacts in Europe then you have LOADS of opportunities to buy tickets from any number of the IOC Authorised Ticket Resellers (ATRs). If you have any questions, just ask. Or get onto Twitter and tweet with the hashtag #2012Tweeps and we'll find you :-) Cheers John

trust me, I'm not the "master" - I just pass on information, that's all :-) But that's very kind of you to say :-) Really, there's many others who are much more skilled than me at actually buying the tickets! From asking previous Olympic Games attendees (pre London), they would agree that it has got harder, simply cos technology (the internet) has allowed greater access - a more even playing field if you like. The process has become more "democratic" for want of a better description.

You really are special aren't you Myles? You see a post from me and just go off the deep-end, as you do. You talk as if you know what the ticketing arrangements were for London, and yet you don't know what ATR stands for?? Unbelieveable. AUTHORISED TICKET RESELLER. ATRs are appointed by the IOC, usually after some bidding process to sell tickets outside of the host country. So the ATR for the USA is Cosport. Cosport have also been appointed as the ATR for the UK. There' are ATRs for every country - they are allowed to sell tickets with a maximum 20% markup on the original value/ All the information is on the Ticketing Guide on the Rio2016.com website.

No bullsh*t Senor Garcia. Blame Ticketmaster if you want, they ran the ticketing site for LOCOG . For the avoidance of doubt, the tickets, £150 Category C were bought as 5 separate purchases of blocks of 4 tickets, all within a few minutes. And the guy wasn't a scalper/hustler/huckster at all. All the tickets were used at their face (original) value of £150. Again, not true. Where do you get this false information from? The £20.12 tickets for the Opening Ceremony were available to the public in (1) the 1st Round Ballot (lottery) as well as (2) the later First-Come-First-Served web-sales on the official London2012.com website in May 2012 and then from June 2012 onwards. I repeat - anyone living in Brazil and who is determined enough to be at the Rio Opening Ceremony, should, if they put the time and effort in, be able to buy one from the official ROCOG ticketing site without have to resort to the secondary market (scalpers etc).

For the avoidance of doubt, London 2012 Opening and Closing Ceremony tickets were available to the public at ALL price points, ranging from the gimmicky priced Category D £20.12 to the Category AA £2012, at 3 time periods between March 2011 and July 27 2012: (1) during the initial 1st Round Ballot (March-April 2011) and then later ... (2) on a first-come-first-served (FCFS) basis during from May 2012 as part of the large phased sale of 1 million contingency tickets and then periodically from ... (3) June 2012 onwards, again on a FCFS basis on the official website. Don't get me wrong, you had to be very very quick if you saw them available. But they WERE available. The guy who bought 20 did so in the June and bought them as 5 separate purchases of blocks of 4 tickets - all within a few minutes. He simply checked out and went back in and repeated. Some ZO and ZC tickets were also available from a small number of ATRs around Europe. When I say the "public", I mean anyone resident in the EU. These weren't available to people living outside the EU.

That is probably how it seems to someone wanting Ceremonies tickets to an Olympics that's outside of their country. However, for the residents of the host country that simply isn't true. London held back 75% and Rio are holding back 70% of their total tickets for the public (residents). With regard to the highest demand events like the Ceremonies and the Men's 100m Final session, then yes, the % of seats available for the public are reduced to something like 40-50%. And of course, any London tickets, made available through the official LOCOG site were also availabe across the whole of the EU. I know someone who managed to buy 20 Opening Ceremony tickets in one go via the official site - LOCOG deliberately held back 1 million tickets from the original ballot. And a large tranche of Opening Ceremony tickets became available through May/June 2012. If I was a Brazilian resident, and I was determined enough to get there, and knowing how the process worked for London, then I'd VERY confident of snagging an Opening Ceremony ticket for Rio. From the perspective of a US-resident wanting to attend Rio, that may be true, unless you have contacts in Brazil, Europe or Asia who could help you. It's a shame that Cosport is your only option. No wonder the secondary market is so lucrative in the US.

Greetings

Apologies for posting this in the Athens Olympics Opening Ceremony Discussion thread... (nice video by the way Kev) New York Times's London correspondent, Sarah Lyall, returns home and writes a nice article on London, the UK and the US and mention the London2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. "Ta-Ta, London. Hello, Awesome." http://t.co/d2lfiQkVo0

Continuing my Danny Boyle and/or Frank Cottrell Boyce related posts, the BBC showed an extended version of a "The Culture Show" Special this week, dedicated to the work of Danny Boyle and featuring an interesting piece on the Opening Ceremony. For those in the UK, it's on the BBC iPlayer and available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01sffdk/The_Culture_Show_2012_2013_Danny_Boyle_Man_of_Wonder_Extended/ For those outside the UK and cos I'm such a nice guy to you all, I've recorded it for you! Yay me! Here is the relevant audio (11 mins in total): https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9M7ZYkOjhHeMXhkNDJuTENDbEk/edit?usp=sharing and here is the VIDEO (again, edited version, 11 mins long) - 500Mb though... sorry about that. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9M7ZYkOjhHedGVfQW13bXVqa00/edit?usp=sharing Enjoy! John

The Frank Cottrell Boyce talk was excellent Dave - really enjoyed the evening. Here's my write-up, hope you like it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZsL_e91frEMdBjldtNH5MrdYWBj-mU_48cXDXazKt60/edit?usp=sharing For those who can't be bothered reading it and in the wake of Olympian2004's excellent post re: understanding Danny Boyle's vision, here is a link to similar talk but thise time with BOTH Frank Cottrell Boyce AND Danny Boyle, to a group of student at Liverpool Hope University back in February, explaing how the show came about and their vision for it: Words of Wonder - Danny Boyle & Frank Cottrell Boyce at Liverpool Hope University,

@Olympian2004 Bloody well said, my good man. For those who are truly interested in such things, it is only by listening & reading to what the Danny Boyle & Frank Cottrell Boyce have to say about the show that you can truly understand what they were getting at. The BBC Olympic DVD box set is excellent in that regard. It's shame that it's region 2, PAL-encoded and that those in the US will struggle to watch it.

Tonight, I'm going along to St George's Hall in Liverpool to attend World Book Night, the 1st time it's been hosted oustide of London. At 8:30pm, Frank Cottrell Boyce will discuss the London 2012 Opening Ceremony .... http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-blaggers-guide-to-liverpool-literature-8581417.html http://www.thebookseller.com/news/world-book-night-picks-liverpool-flagship-event.html World Book Night: Books At The Olympics Free, Ticketed | 23rd April8.30pm - 9.15pm , Small Concert Hall, St George's Hall, St George's Place, Liverpool, L1 1JJ With so much of its inspiration coming from literature, this session will see Frank Cottrell Boyce discuss the Olympic Opening Ceremony he wrote and conceived along with Danny Boyle. This is destined to be a fascinating session as we get under the skin of where you start when tasked with celebrating a nation’s identity, and why literature was such a key part of this story. Pre-book your ticket in advance via www.itsliverpool.com/culture Buy Tickets Here

I wasnt't aware that "Boyle" was a character in the show... Who or what do you mean?

How wonderfully British. Spot on chaps.

Ditto! :-)

Oh yes they will ...

Note I did say: ""Danny Boy" - not sung in a rugby context by the Irish but a well-known Irish song anyway." I don't know any other well-known Irish song that would have worked so well. Do you? Again, the whole point of the clip was (1) "Welcome to the United Kingdom and our isles of wonder... In case you need reminding we are 4 nations: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales" (2) "to the people of our 4 nations - this is for all of you!" Nothing more, nothing less.

THis may have been posted previously in which case I apologise for repetition. Danny Boyle speaking to the BBC - broadcast by the BBC in the build-up to the ceremony on 27-July-2012:

I want to try and clear this up. (1) Rugby has as much to do with the Olympics as James Bond does. [Acutally even more now given its inclusion in Rio 2016]. .... the rugby clips were a message to the 4 nations of the UK - a chest-beating flag-waving moment if you like.. .... while James Bond "spoke" to the international audience. [and thankyou to OlympicFan2004 for highlighting the inclusion of host-nation/region-specific non-Olympic sports in previous Olympic Ceremonies. Incidently, I'd be quite happy to see a 20 second clip of memorable SuperBowl moments in a future US Games OC] (2) THIS IS IMPORTANT.... the Four Nations Choirs sang the following beautiful RUGBY-RELATED hymns. Jerusalem, Oh Danny Boy, Guide Me Oh Thou Great Redeemer (Bread of Heaven) Flower of Scotland. Now (bear with me).... Despite being English, I only know "Jerusalem" from a rugby context (shame on me!). It has become the unofficial England anthem amongst its rugby union supporters and is clearly heard on the TV broadcasts when England play. Ditto "Guide Me Oh Thou Great Redeemer (Bread of Heaven)" - one of my favourites. I only know it from watching rugby union on the TV starting in the 1970s. It is sung with huge gusto by the Welsh rugby fans. Again, "Flower of Scotland"... exactly the same in that I only became aware of it in a rugby context. And now both the Scotland Rugby Union and Football (Soccer) teams sing it as their official anthem. "Danny Boy" - not sung in a rugby context by the Irish but a well-known Irish song anyway. --------------------- So to understand that segment (the Four Nations Choirs) is to understand the UK and it's sporting heritage and culture. Rugby has produced great moments to Northern Ireland (who play with the Republic of Ireland as one nation: "Ireland), Wales and Scotland and England (and France!). If YOU were trying to find a sporting reference that could play alongside the 4 hymns, making strong, uplifting references to our 4 nations, ... which SPORT would you chose? Football/soccer? Nope. Doesnt work anywhere near as well as rugby. Cricket? Nope. Athletics? Hockey? Boxing? Nothing works as well in this context as RUGBY. The crucial point here is that our 4 home nations compete as 1 nation at the Olympics: UK ("TeamGB"). So an Olympic sport wouldn't work AT ALL. The whole idea of the segment is to say: Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland! THIS IS FOR YOU AS WELL. ------------------ Asking both "why rugby?" and "what the hell does rugby have to do with the Olympics?" are both legitimate questions in my opinion. I hope I've answered both. Spot on Davey. I say again, that the clips lasted a total of 17 seconds.

Mark, thanks for posting these. Great clips and the crowd atmosphere really shines through. FWIW, what was your interpretation of the rugby clips during the Four Nations Choirs?

@JMarkSnow2012 Thanks for that clip - interesting to see that NBC had a slightly different cut/edit going on. I'm sure the likes of DurbanSandshark knows much more about this than I do. But even so, the rugby clips in the NBC broadcast are exactly the same as the BBC & IOC broadcast. I respectfully disagree with your theory re: the de Coubertin references for rugby's inclusion. In my opinion, it was simply a flag-waving chest-beating moment for those naysayers living in Scotland, Wales & NI. A way to include everyone. I thought the stadium reaction said it all.