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Opening And Closing Ceremony Ticket With Microchip ?


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Recently CNN news indicated all opening and closing tickets would require a microchip with

passport number, photo and other security information. Is this really true and how is this accomplished?

If that`s true, I would say it`s a good innovation.

However, is this not going to create a kind of identity theft?As regarding people information on ticket that would be disposed off after the games.

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It's true and it's an RFID chip. All winners/purchasers of Ceremonies tickets had to submit, earlier this year, the required information including photo. It's not the kind of information that anybody could really use to pull off an identity theft, given that passport & name type of info is already in piles of databases everywhere, assuming you travel. The information given was encoded and placed in the tickets as part of the ticket printing/production process. They have not yet been distributed. This means all Ceremonies tickets are personalized--the person holding the ticket must be the same person whose info and photo is on the ticket, or entrance to the venue will be denied. There will be provision for ONE legitimate transfer from the original buyer to somebody else to take place, but it must be done officially and information from the new buyer will be required. BOCOG has not yet announced the exact procedure. I think given the limited time to accomplish, it will be very difficult.

Other event tickets will have an RFID chip but that is mostly to ascertain the ticket is genuine and to foil counterfeiting. Personal information will not be on these tickets in electronic form. Chinese domestic sale Phase 3 tickets, already printed out and in the hands of buyers, are a little bit different than the still-to-be-distributed event tickets, and do show the account number (not the name) of the purchaser, date and place of purchase on them. But all the event tickets should be swappable/resellable.

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All ticket holders for the international market have until the end of this month to provide a photo and passport details for all Cermeony ticket holders.

Then starting 15th June - 17th July (5pm Biejing time) this is the last date that the ticket holder can transfer to another person (details and process to be released soon). But the problem is the Beijing Organising Committee is having a huge problem with the technoloigy for ticket data upload. It was supposed to start in January and all international accounts still do not have access, so it needs to be done manually and by submissing discs containing the data.

Closing Ceremony ticket holders have until 3rd August to be transfered. Anothing after this date and whoever is the ticket holder must be the FINAL ticket holder.

Same thing for the Paralympic Games, with dates three weeks before the event as the closing date as well.

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All ticket holders for the international market have until the end of this month to provide a photo and passport details for all Cermeony ticket holders.

Then starting 15th June - 17th July (5pm Biejing time) this is the last date that the ticket holder can transfer to another person (details and process to be released soon). But the problem is the Beijing Organising Committee is having a huge problem with the technoloigy for ticket data upload. It was supposed to start in January and all international accounts still do not have access, so it needs to be done manually and by submissing discs containing the data.

Closing Ceremony ticket holders have until 3rd August to be transfered. Anothing after this date and whoever is the ticket holder must be the FINAL ticket holder.

Same thing for the Paralympic Games, with dates three weeks before the event as the closing date as well.

Wow! BOCOG has really screwed up ticketing even more than we already knew. The domestic Chinese Ceremonies buyers had to get their information in by February (later extended to March). I didn't realize that the international Ceremonies ticket holders' information processing was running so far behind. I wonder if production of the international OC/CC tickets are being batched separately, so they won't hold up distribution of those for domestic China? To my knowledge, there has been no general public announcement yet in China about ticket availability, but June 15 is rapidly approaching and, given the ticketing track record for all the other Phases, I'm not sure anybody here believes the actual tickets are going to appear for distribution on that date. It will be interesting if this time frame for transfer holds true, especially if the tickets don't appear until end of June/early July. If anybody bought a Ceremonies ticket to attend, this doesn't seem like a big deal. But if they purchased strictly to resell/ transfer at a large profit, they might be getting a little worried about now.

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I received two tickets for the closing ceremony and as I did not have another person for the second ticket I uploaded both tickets with my own information. When I went to transfer the second ticket I was told by Cosport that ticket transfers were not going to be allowed after the initial upload (contradicting the one transfer policy that everyone is aware of). They let me transfer because both tickets were registered with my info (the transfer itself was painless and myself and the transferee received a confirming email within an hour or so of providing her information).

A couple of asides: I know a lot of people aren't happy with Cosport but I had a few issues with tickets so I dealt with them a couple of times. I always found them professional and very logical, reasonable and quick to respond with a solution.

Cracks are beginning to appear in the hotel rates with some rooms opening up and rates coming down, however everyone seems to have gone to a 100% non-refundable full payment up front. Makes it kind of tough to fork out that money knowing that getting a visa is not a slam dunk.

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If anybody bought a Ceremonies ticket to attend, this doesn't seem like a big deal. But if they purchased strictly to resell/ transfer at a large profit, they might be getting a little worried about now.

There are so many opening ceremony tickets you can buy on the internet. I think those people didn't realise when they bought it this procedure. Because it will take some time to change the names for the ticket. After July 17 the opening ceremony tickets they still have with another ID are worthless. And again a few tickets of ticketbrokers who cannot be used during the Games.

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  • 3 weeks later...
There are so many opening ceremony tickets you can buy on the internet. I think those people didn't realise when they bought it this procedure. Because it will take some time to change the names for the ticket. After July 17 the opening ceremony tickets they still have with another ID are worthless. And again a few tickets of ticketbrokers who cannot be used during the Games.

I guess you must really trust the person you are selling to. Because if you change the name before they have sent the money... then you can not change it back if they don't pay. Equally if you are paying for a ticket - how do you know they will change the name on the ticket to yours?

A theoretical question - if anyone wants to sell a ticket that was purchased to be used, but now can not be, is it legal to advertise this fact on this forum? I can't really find any rules on the site? But normally that sort of thing is discouraged to avoid people flooding the boards with advertsing. If it is not legal does anyone know trustworthy ways of swapping/trading or selling Beijing tickets that can't be used?

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NEWS on the microchip

It has fallen apart and BOCOG can not cope, ticketing companies can not transfer the user now and many regions and sponsors are refusing to meet the deadline for submission which was 30th June, but anyone contact CoSPort and ask to transfer your data for tickets? I did and the answer is NO!

....watch this space

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NEWS on the microchip

It has fallen apart and BOCOG can not cope, ticketing companies can not transfer the user now and many regions and sponsors are refusing to meet the deadline for submission which was 30th June, but anyone contact CoSPort and ask to transfer your data for tickets? I did and the answer is NO!

....watch this space

I heard the deadline now is July 17th for the opening ceremony and August 5th for the closing. That's also on the Chinese mainland.

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Here in Beijing, there are quite a few English and Chinese websites with Ceremonies tickets advertised. Everyone here is well aware of the looming transfer deadline for the Opening. Those who bought a ticket for resale are getting antsy, as they pretty much know they are limited to finding someone already here, in order to both go to BOCOG physically and do the transfer process. Will be interesting to see if the (still) outrageous asking prices start dropping like a stone in the next week. The main issue with tickets bought on the mainland is that they are all singletons due to the one-per-customer limit. I suppose a 4-hour long Ceremony is time enough to make friends with all your "neighbors" in the stands...

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...snip....

If it is not legal does anyone know trustworthy ways of swapping/trading or selling Beijing tickets that can't be used?

Truthfully, the only surefire way when two strangers are transacting business is a face-to-face deal, where each party can inspect the tickets and the cash. With a few exceptions for people I already know, or who come recommended by someone I know, or maybe a few of you GB'ers :lol: I'm only doing face-to-face deals for Olympic event tickets (non-Ceremonies). I've done a couple of deals already for tickets I wanted, by scoping out two separate Chinese sellers auctioning on ebay. They had left a trail that led to their emails. I contacted them by email, told them I was living in Beijing, and if their auctions didn't work out, contact me and we could meet and do a deal on the spot, with cash in their hands and cut out the middlemen. I also gave them the price I was willing to pay...well above face value of course but fair to both sides given the market value of the tickets in question. We all came away happy campers.

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wonder if they are using Expo soft. James actually Nigeria's Chams printed 70 million voter id smart cards for the last general election in a mere 6 weeks . They could have easily put Rfid into the Smart cards. Exposoft from Canada had done the World youth day conferences which have more attendees then the olympics. Also all tickets for World Cup 2006 were Rfid enabled . I don't know why the Beijing Games would be having problems simply because events of this scale have been pulled of this this technology without problems . Unless they are reinventing the Wheel trying something that was developed with a prior trial .

Jim jones

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The main issue with tickets bought on the mainland is that they are all singletons due to the one-per-customer limit. I suppose a 4-hour long Ceremony is time enough to make friends with all your "neighbors" in the stands...

Does anyone else find this "1-Ceremony-ticket-per-customer" limit a bit ridiculous?

Has this been done for past Games? Something tells me no, it hasn't.

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Does anyone else find this "1-Ceremony-ticket-per-customer" limit a bit ridiculous?

Has this been done for past Games? Something tells me no, it hasn't.

BOCOG did this in order to give the maximum number of Chinese people the chance to get a ticket in the Phase 1 lottery, due to the huge population demographic. Most of the winners had other family/friends that also put in their own applications, but the odds of 2 people in the same household getting a Ceremonies ticket was almost nil. Also, even if that occurred, the seat assignments would have been done randomly and separately...you could end up anywhere in the respective Category. Everybody, even the Chinese public themselves, thought this was a stupid idea. Chinese don't like to do ANYTHING (eat, travel, attend events, etc.) alone. Of course, the international agents didn't follow the same path, although some (i.e. CoSport) still limited requests to 2 tickets, which I think is fair.

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  • 2 weeks later...

BOCOG have now scrapped the personal data collection but will not publically relese this for fear of loosing face.

The trouble they have made people go to for this data processing is just stupid and many people refused or did not meet the deadline for the transfer

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BOCOG have now scrapped the personal data collection but will not publically relese this for fear of loosing face.

The trouble they have made people go to for this data processing is just stupid and many people refused or did not meet the deadline for the transfer

Here in Beijing there are scads of ads in the local classifieds from people trying to resell their Opening Ceremonies ticket (still at ridiculously inflated prices, though they are coming down). People still seem to be treating the looming July 14 5:00 pm deadline as gospel, so this "inside information" is obviously not out there. It will be interesting to see if all these ads disappear overnight come July 15, or if the word will get out that the transfer policy may be "looser" than BOCOG originally intended...and the reselling will continue.

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its on page 15 by the way that it says this

Says the same thing in the Chinese version as well. That doesn't mean that BOCOG will follow the manual on this. They can do whatever they want.

I can tell you that since evening of July 14, all the local Beijing online classified ads for reselling Opening Ceremonies tickets have stopped, so obviously the local population is believing the July 14 5 pm deadline is real. I suspect if you tried to buy one now and went with the seller to register the transfer papers at BOCOG or Bank of China branch, they would refuse to take them. Outside China, I have no idea. We'll see if the action starts up again.

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