Now you see us, now you don't: thousands of synchronised swimming ticket holders will be left disappointed. |
Around 200 people who thought their only experience of the London 2012 Olympic Games would be minor heats of synchronised swimming have received an unexpected upgrade to the men’s 100m final following an embarrassing ticketing mistake. The London 2012 organising committee (Locog) confirmed on Wednesday that a decidedly unsynchronised error in its ticketing process had led to four synchronised swimming sessions being oversold by 10,000 tickets. Locog and its ticket agent Ticketmaster spent the Christmas period contacting ticket holders and offering them alternatives, starting with tickets for sports they had applied for but been unsuccessful. The upgrades have come at no additional cost, with Locog not charging for any discrepancy between the synchronised swimming tickets and the alternatives on offer. It has also offered to repay any discrepancy if the new tickets cost less than the originals. Locog said the replacement tickets would come from a stock of unsold seats across the Olympic Games and that it was doing all it could to make good the error to fans who bought tickets in good faith. Locog said the error occurred in the summer, between the first and second round of ticket sales, when a member of staff made a single keystroke mistake and entered ‘20,000’ into a spreadsheet rather than the correct figure of 10,000 remaining tickets. The error was discovered when Locog reconciled the number of tickets sold against the final layouts and seating configurations for venues, and began contacting ticket holders before Christmas. Thousands of ticketholders have already struck lucky, upgrading to tickets for major events including swimming and athletics finals, and in around 200 cases the hottest ticket of all, the men’s 100m final. Locog said the decision to award 100m final tickets was taken because one of the synchronised swimming sessions was on the same afternoon as the event, August 5. (Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
約200人本以為2012倫敦奧運會他們只能看看花樣游泳,稍微感受一下奧運熱度,但是由于一個尷尬的售票錯誤,讓他們意外獲得觀看男子100米短跑決賽的機會。 2012倫敦奧組委于周三證實,售票過程中一個明顯不同步的錯誤導(dǎo)致了4場花樣游泳賽事門票超額預(yù)訂10000張。 倫敦奧組委及其票務(wù)代理機構(gòu)Ticketmaster在圣誕節(jié)聯(lián)系失誤門票持有者,向他們提供其他選擇,第一個備選就是那些他們曾申請過但沒能申請到的賽事門票。 門票升級不需要額外花費,倫敦奧組委不收取花樣游泳門票和備選門票的差價。如果新門票比原來的更便宜,倫敦奧組委還會返還差價。 倫敦奧組委稱這些替換門票來自于奧運會各場賽事未售出的一些座位,他們盡最大努力補償那些誠意購買門票的粉絲。 倫敦奧組委稱這個失誤發(fā)生在夏天的第一和第二輪門票銷售中,一名工作人員犯了一個鍵盤輸入錯誤,在電子表格中輸入了20000而不是正確的剩余門票數(shù)10000。這一錯誤是在倫敦奧組委核對已賣票數(shù)和最終場館布局及座位安排的時候被發(fā)現(xiàn)的,圣誕節(jié)前他們就開始和門票持有者聯(lián)系。 成千上萬的門票持有者碰上了好運,他們把門票升級為游泳和田徑?jīng)Q賽等大型賽事的門票,約200人得到了最火的賽事門票——男子100米決賽門票。 倫敦奧組委稱提供8月5日的100米決賽門票,是因為出錯門票涉及的一場花樣游泳賽事在同一天下午舉行。 相關(guān)閱讀 (中國日報網(wǎng)英語點津 陳丹妮 編輯:Julie) |
Vocabulary: synchronised swimming: 花樣游泳 make good: 補償 in good faith: 誠心誠意地,善意地 struck lucky: 交好運 |