Americans Find Out Their Ticket Winnings Today

[YellowVest]

Looks like 50,000 of the 1.6 million tickets were alloted to the U.S. so that shoots down talk that it's just Americans that are getting all the tickets:

http://www.news1130.com/news/local/more.js...06_102301_31180

[baron-pierreIV]

Looks like 50,000 of the 1.6 million tickets were alloted to the U.S. so that shoots down talk that it's just Americans that are getting all the tickets:

http://www.news1130.com/news/local/more.js...06_102301_31180

Where does the report say TODAY? Another one of your INACCURATE reports. I was personally told by a Cosport manager in the US, results for the US would not be made known until around Januar 19, 2009.

Please STOP SPREADING INACCURATE reports. Your credibility is really sinking into the negative zone.

[Torchbearer AA]

Where does the report say TODAY? Another one of your INACCURATE reports. I was personally told by a Cosport manager in the US, results for the US would not be made known until around Januar 19, 2009.

Please STOP SPREADING INACCURATE reports. Your credibility is really sinking into the negative zone.

January 19, are you sure?

The week before christmas we got a e-mail sent by Cosport stated we will know the results this week. We live in Europe and the tickets will be from Austria, Sweden, Bulgaia etc.. but why would they use another date for the US?

Or maybe they cancelled also again the resulsts for Europe but we don't know it until now.

Indeed I cannot find in the report today, but maybe this week is also still possible?

[Torchbearer AA]

Looks like 50,000 of the 1.6 million tickets were alloted to the U.S. so that shoots down talk that it's just Americans that are getting all the tickets:

It does not look like only 50,000 to the U.S. because this is only the first phase of the ticket sellings. So probably there are still 50,000 tickets more for the U.S. and that makes some 100,000... that's a lot more;)

[baron-pierreIV]

January 19, are you sure?

That's what I was told by a LIVE person. I also want to know ASAP so I can make my own plans accordingly. Why would I make "Jan 19" up?

[Torchbearer AA]

That's what I was told by a LIVE person. I also want to know ASAP so I can make my own plans accordingly. Why would I make "Jan 19" up?

I don't know, it's only there are many different stories about the same thing.. that's also the conclusion from the Beijing ticketing process.

For the people interested in some numbers of the American ticket requests:

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/olympics/

[baron-pierreIV]

Ooops. WRong folder.

Edited January 6, 2009 by baron-pierreIV

[Torchbearer AA]

If you go down to that link you can find this article, from yesterday.

January 5, 2009 6:31 PM

Washington: We're no British Columbia -- but we can be a stand-in

Posted by Ron Judd

A couple converging notes about Washington hills and trails serving as training grounds for 2010 Winter Games athletes:

-- Thirty-eight-year-old Roberto Carcelen, a runner and surfer from Peru, is training as a cross-country skier at Hyak, hoping to claim a spot in the Vancouver 2010 Games, The New York Times reports here. He's one of a growing number of athletes from warm-climate nations taking up winter sports in the hope of appearing in winter sport's marquee event.

-- The list of other athletes from unlikely places doing the same includes Kenya's Philip Boit, part of that memorable Nike publicity stunt to place runners from a desert climate in the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. Boit competed there, but much to everyone's surprise, stuck with the sport after Nike stopped writing checks. He competed in the Salt Lake and Turin Games, finishing 92nd in the 15K -- ahead of five competitors -- in the latter. And he has vowed to cap his career by competing in the Vancouver Games. To help prepare, he's used the great trail network in Washington's Methow Valley as a training course.

He might not be alone for long. Word from a couple different sources is that the U.S. Cross-Country Ski Team, which has medal hopes higher than they've been in a decade, also is looking at the Methow as a possible pre-Olympic training venue. More on this to come.

[thatsnotmypuppy]

Interesting point in the Seattle blog -

For comparison purposes, we also know that CoSport received an allotment of 2,629 tickets for Australia, receiving 339 orders for a total of 4,142 tickets, so even fans Down Under went through a lottery process.

That seems lower than published over here - 339 orders? 2,629 tickets for 4,142 requested - so a 60% or thereabouts return? I wonder how many of those 2,629 tickets are for crap events and will turn up in the general sale? Also I always knew there would be a lotto down here - everyone I know who is planning on going asked for Ice Hockey, Short Track and Ceremony tickets.

[pax]

Wow, so 45% of all US orders got squat.

Anyone actually gotten a confirmation from Cosport yet?

[thatsnotmypuppy]

Well I haven't - but I also (like Baron) wasn't expecting confirmation for another couple of weeks or so?

[YellowVest]

I don't spread misinformation. If you choose not to believe the media, that's your cup of tea. I found the article and I present it for your perusal.

[rlangmit]

Hi, just signed up to say that this is real. I got:

SS001 Speed Skating (3)

BT002 Biathlon (8)

FS001 Figure Skating (4)

IH011 Ice Hockey (5)

CU004 Curling (5)

Didn't get:

ST001 Short Track Speed Skating

SB001 Snowboard

AS003 Alpine Skiing

So I guess pretty good given the reports from the Seattle Times!

[IamHydro]

I got my email at about 11 PM Monday:

Got:

CU004 Curling

IH014 Ice Hockey

IH019 Ice Hockey

BT005 Biathlon

Didn't Get:

SS006 Speed Skating

AS005 Alpine Skiing

SN002 Skeleton

SJ004 Ski Jumping

BS001 Bobsleigh

I wish it had turned out better for me. I would have requested more events had I known it was going to be so dicey. When you filled out your request, all of my events except for SJ004 were listed as low demand events.

[mr.x]

Why do I have a feeling that we have multiple accounts by one user?

[rlangmit]

I wish it had turned out better for me. I would have requested more events had I known it was going to be so dicey. When you filled out your request, all of my events except for SJ004 were listed as low demand events.

Yeah, I was a bit surprised to get long track (listed as high demand) instead of short track (listed as low, or at least normal, demand). Then again, I was also surprised to get figure skating.

[OlympicGames]

Indeed, CoSport did begin notifying people today, at least according to the Seattle Times.

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/olympics/

January 6, 2009 9:20 AM

Washington state Oly fans tops -- by far -- in Vancouver ticket requests

Posted by Ron Judd

Washington state residents accounted for a whopping 40 percent of ticket requests for the Vancouver 2010 Games, the sole U.S. Olympic ticket distributor says.

CoSport, which today began notifying fans which tickets -- if any -- they will receive for the February, 2010 Games, said in a news release that 40 percent of its 14,179 ticket orders (with requests for 166,800 individual tickets) came from Washington state. The next closest state was California, with 16 percent.

Overall, the agency, which has rankled some U.S. customers with its automatic 20-percent commission and what amounts to a $35-per-order mailing fee, will be distributing only 43,004 tickets to the U.S., according to the release. About 55 percent of fans will receive some requested tickets, but few if any will receive all they asked for. Only about 25 percent of total ticket requests were fulfilled through a lottery system.

The agency, which chose ticket recipients to most events through a random lottery process after fans submitted electronic wish lists late last year, cited unprecedented ticket demand. And CoSport noted that the original total U.S. allocation was only 33,500 tickets. (That's about half of B.C. Place for a single opening or closing ceremony). Co-Sport's sister company, Jet Set Sports, which books travel packages for the Olympics, contributed an extra 15,000 tickets to the pool to bring the U.S. ticket total to about 48,000, the agency said.

Still, given the population base, tremendous fan interest, and large U.S. athlete delegation -- all factors supposedly considered in Vancouver organizers' decision on how many tickets to allot to foreign nations -- that's a surprisingly low number. The total U.S. allotment is about 3 percent of the Vancouver Games' total 1.6 million tickets sold. Demand, naturally, was very high for that small pool of tickets, mirroring the experience with Canadian sales. There, even with a fraction of the U.S. population base and a vastly larger ticket pool, some 120 of 170 total events required lottery processes to determine ticket winners. Canadian fans have been grousing about the process for weeks.

(For comparison purposes, we also know that CoSport received an allotment of 2,629 tickets for Australia, receiving 339 orders for a total of 4,142 tickets, so even fans Down Under went through a lottery process.)

The top 5 most-requested sports in the U.S.:

1. Ice Hockey

2. Figure Skating

3. Snowboard

4. Short Track Speed Skating

5. Alpine Skiing

And the top 5 most-requested individual event sessions:

1. Snowboard -- Men's Half pipe (17th February) -- Category B tickets

2. Snowboard -- Men's Half pipe (17th February) -- Category A tickets

3. Figure Skating -- Ladies Free Skate (25th February) -- Category B tickets

4. Opening Ceremony (12th February) -- Category C tickets

5. Snowboard -- Men's Snowboard Cross Qualification/Final (15th February) -- Category B tickets

A small number of remaining tickets will go on sale to the public on CoSport's Web site next month.

(Thanks to poster "Go Ducks" who noticed the news release in a very non-obvious spot on Co-Sport's site. We shall officially refrain from any Duck jokes for at least one day in his honor.)

[mr.x]

Any lucky Americans here yet?

[rlangmit]

Any lucky Americans here yet?

Like the two of us who have already posted?

I'm considering myself "lucky" at least--to get anything, let alone a few tougher-to-get events.

[mr.x]

Like the two of us who have already posted?

I'm considering myself "lucky" at least--to get anything, let alone a few tougher-to-get events.

I think it's much more likely that the "two" of you are also called "yellowvest" and/or "northwest2k".

[rlangmit]

I think it's much more likely that the "two" of you are also called "yellowvest" and/or "northwest2k".

Well, I'm not going on and on about how BC Place is going to kill millions, so I don't know why you would think that. =) I can't speak for the other guy, but that post seemed innocent also.

Seriously, I've just been browsing these forums the past few months and was excited to post about the tickets my friends/family and I got. I also was (and still am) a bit confused why there was so much controversy about the original post--especially after the Seattle Times was linked to on page 1 (well before the recent cut-and-paste). Also, CoSport told us in mid-December that this was the week we'd find out. So I thought I would clear up the situation by posting some actual ticket results...

[FiveRingFever]

I got my notification today. I applied for 48 tickets total (24 events) and got 4 hockey games:

IH030 (2)

IH032 (2)

IH042 (2)

IH043 (2)

Needless to say, I'm extremely bummed. When Cartan used to distribute the tickets, you actually had to put money up front. I think that discouraged a lot of the scalpers. Now anyone interested in turning a profit can apply without committing a dime. I thought Beijing was tough. This is ridiculous.

[thatsnotmypuppy]

While it is true scalpers can apply en-masse for tickets their chances of getting premium tickets are the same as yours - also Vancouver has the new policy of charging immediately as your tickets are confirmed - meaning scalpers run the risk of getting hundreds of biathlon tickets they will have troubles shifting. At least with Beijing through CoSport you got an initial offer of tickets - you could then decide which if any you wanted to keep and then they charged you for what you agree to use.

In regards to this current arrangement - I'm in Australia. I am not going to fly all the way to Vancouver if all I get is one curling and one ice hockey ticket. I'm going to want at least a few days full of events to make it worth the considerable expense. Unfortunately in this instance I will get whatever I get and get charged either way - meaning if I only get 2 tickets they will be unused. On the plus side it loks like Australia did get a fair allocation this time around after the Beijing f*ck up.

It makes far more sense to me to let the buyer know what they are offered first and then give them the choice of what they want to keep or pass up. Sure that means a lot of undesirable sport tickets will be put back in the pool - but there appears to be no shortage of Canadians willing to see anything they can get in to.

I hope London 2012 does a better job looking after the foreign allotments.

[Faster]

While it is true scalpers can apply en-masse for tickets their chances of getting premium tickets are the same as yours - also Vancouver has the new policy of charging immediately as your tickets are confirmed - meaning scalpers run the risk of getting hundreds of biathlon tickets they will have troubles shifting. At least with Beijing through CoSport you got an initial offer of tickets - you could then decide which if any you wanted to keep and then they charged you for what you agree to use.

In regards to this current arrangement - I'm in Australia. I am not going to fly all the way to Vancouver if all I get is one curling and one ice hockey ticket. I'm going to want at least a few days full of events to make it worth the considerable expense. Unfortunately in this instance I will get whatever I get and get charged either way - meaning if I only get 2 tickets they will be unused. On the plus side it loks like Australia did get a fair allocation this time around after the Beijing f*ck up.

It makes far more sense to me to let the buyer know what they are offered first and then give them the choice of what they want to keep or pass up. Sure that means a lot of undesirable sport tickets will be put back in the pool - but there appears to be no shortage of Canadians willing to see anything they can get in to.

I hope London 2012 does a better job looking after the foreign allotments.

I completely agree, if I was given the choice of accepting my allocation or returning it like CoSport gave for Beijing I would have declined the allocation because even living in Ontario its not worth flying to Vancouver at those inflated prices to see one sporting event, even if it is one I really wanted to see.

[thatsnotmypuppy]

And that is the kicker. If it was say Athens or Torino where the sales situation might have been a bit more dicey sales wise then I'd totally understand those organisers having something like the current policy. But with a Games in Vancouver - with huge local demand and a massive populatice within a few hours flying time it should not have been set up this way. There is no shortage of buyers - so I do not understand why they have this system.

All it means is that more local buyers will miss out as the international (and national for that matter) allocation do not get used - and this time it is the organisers direct fault - not the IOC and their sponsor programs.

Edited January 7, 2009 by thatsnotmypuppy