What to watch at the London Olympics

Absolutely fascinating.

Two weeks of OTT running, jumping, throwing, hitting etc etc ad nauseam.

I love watching the Olympics on the BBC, but on this occasion, I hope to watch as little on TV as possible. So excited to start planning which tickets to aim for!

You seem to have missed a bit in your fourth paragraph Dave, let me help you out.

"On which days should you try to SEE IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO get the unique experience of being there?"

I bet you and your BBC colleagues are absolutely cock-a-hoop at the massive audiences you're going to get of people who haven't got at least a grand spare to enjoy these Games to their fullest in person.

Of course you don't have to pay to be there, Dave, quite the reverse in fact.

I remember in 2008 a lot of video coverage could be found online but only for the people residing in the UK. Will this still be the case or will people from outside the UK be able to tune into the online videostreams on the BBC website? I thoroughly enjoyed the BBC coverage in 2008 but obviously you are stuck to the events the BBC decides to show on TV.

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I personally can't wait for the BMX, last time round in Beijing it was hilarious, watching semi grown adults peddling furiously and occasionally knocking each other over.

A month of road closures, and lane closures causing massive traffic jams - tv schedules cancelled, same thing being shown on multiple channels.

Financial burden to last for years, late hand-over of some buildings.

Wake me up when it is all over!

It cracks me up too, the thought of the crazy BMXers trying to sell things to each other as they pedal furiously around the course, lol.

Ah British negativity, you just have to love it!!!

Downloaded the menu this morning excited about choosing some events to go and see. Wasnt expecting bargains - but at least Dick Turpin wore a mask while robbing you!

Cant seem to find any seating arrangements to match with the price categories. If im prepared to take out a mortgage for a decent category ticket I at least want some idea of what im paying for before handing my savings over to the organisers - AGAIN!

@3 - Have you even bothered to check ANY of the price structures that have been presented this morning?? I dont think that any of these tickets get even close to a grand.

Im sick of British people complaining about the games being here. If you're not bothered about the Games, why try and put a downer on it for everybody else? I, like many others, are incredibly excited about the Games being in this country for what is a once in a lifetime experience. And I will be applying for tickets for lots of the events, even if I dont have £1000 going spare (!)

OldRocker, I wonder why you bothered to clink on a link to the Olympics, log on and post a comment if you clearly find sport boring?

I am a bit perturbed by the number of times the words "gold" and "medal" are featured in the BBC article about the schedule. There will be other nations and competitors turning up as well as British ones, you know. I fear many of our athletes will crumble under the weight of absurd expectation by August next year. It doesn't bear thinking about.

if people dont enjoy the olympics then that is fine, but why come on to a page that is celebrating the olympics to spread your misery?

@11. To be fair to Jason Crawley some of the tickets for the finals and opening ceremonies cost in excess of £2000. But then again at all these events there are tickets that come right down to about £20, so you can still experience the games without having to remortgage the house.

I registered to be a 2012 volunteer expecting to hear BEFORE the tickets came out whether my application was accepted or not. It now looks likely I will not hear until after the tickets have been sold. This will put me and other potential volunteers in a real dilemma. I want to be part of the Olympic experience either as a spectator or a volunteer but to forgo getting any tickets and then getting a volunteering rejection letter would be just to awful to contemplate.

@14 - ah yeah, I have just realised there are omly 3 ticket catergories for the entire Games for sale at over 1K. Alternatively, you could just not pay these incredibly high levels, as you say, and still enjoy the games!

It is also worth remembering, as it says on the London 2012 website, that many of the cheaper tickets are subsidised by the more expensive ones. It would appear that having these incredibly high ticket prices is indeed useful for the rest of us then!

I've promised my daughter that she can watch Usain Bolt and (if he qualifies) Oscar Pistorious. The 100m Final will be a bit expensive, so I'll go for the 1st and 2nd Round. Same runners - a lot cheaper and more races to watch.

And yes, I'm excited about a trip to the UK with my family to show them the Best of British at the Olympics.

What a happy bunch you are.

We love the Olympics so we're saving up, booking the time off work, getting to a few events in the cheaper seats and watching some of the free road events and soaking up the atmosphere.

Some of the team events you can get two matches for £20 - bargain. And for children you only have to pay the age of your child. Yes, the top grade tickets are extortionate but there are tickets for everyone.

singinghannahj, you mean like they crumbled at Beijing, bringing home only 18 golds and giving us our best haul for how many decades???

wow, wow and wow!!!
can't wait, and I have got a year to plan my schedule!


to all the negative comments on here - you seriously need to get a life.
anybody in this country not looking forward to next year, can I remind you that this is a ONCE in a lifetime event, and we should all be proud to be hosting the games.

#5 I believe she actually served her punishment for missing the drugs tests & - let's repeat it - there was no evidence she actually had taken drugs. So you are clearly one of those who believe in guilt without evidence and that a punishment can never be served.
Otherwise, I agree with those who have commented on the typical British negativity about the Olympics. But even if we get 50 gold medals, head the medals table and the rest of the world says the 2012 games were a tremendous success, you can bet there will still be a large number of people in the UK finding something to groan and grumble about. It's a pity there isn't an Olympic event in whingeing and moaning - we'd have at least one gold medal sewn up already!

Tickets are cheaper than a flight to another host city would be.

May have read lazily but I cannot see the 4 x 100m and 4 x 400m relays? I look forward to those events.

Will definately get to Dorney on one day and try and see some velodrome action.

Great News! Now I can start planning exactly when to go on holiday and miss this over-hyped, waste of money just craeted to make a few egos even bigger.

Bearing how massively OTT the BBC goes at any 'normal' sporting event, I should imagine the Beeb will be unbearable for weeks, if not months before, during and after this giant white elephant.

I have volunteered to help out with the olympics as I'll have a chunk of time available during the olympics and paralympics, but they'll not tell me if I'll be wanted until the end of 2011, long after the ticketting period. I haven't even been called for selection yet.

It all just seems as if they've got the timeline for volunteers totally messed up, it's possible that volunteers may end up not needed and also without tickets. If I knew when I might be needed, I could avoid these dates on the ticket applications, but as it stands, it seems that volunteers (who are to be out of pocket as no expenses are given) get the short end of the stick due to uncertainty.

Delaying ticket sales until after volunteers had certainty would have been the courteous option. Given that this isn't going to happen, they could reserve a batch of tickets so that volunteers (wanted or not) can apply for tickets with a similar chance of getting them as the main cohort of applications. This could still be done.

The dilemma of ticket applications whilst not knowing on what dates I'll be free means that I'm seriously considering withdrawing from volunteering.

I WAS looking forward to the olympics, however having just checked out the prices, I'll be definitely be needing a loan to go and watch my favourite sport! Ridiculous prices, the organisers should be ashamed of themselves.

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I'm not really sure why some of you are reading a link to the Olympics if you find it so dull? Personally, I will be booking the entire duration off work, and this will be our summer holiday. Think about how much you would spend to go and lie on a beach, and instead spending it on sporting events and a visit to our capital city....looking forward to it already!

The only discipline I'm going to apply for is the Equestrian categories - one of the few areas in which men and women compete equally against each other. Also, no other sport can compare with the beauty of dressage, the thrill of cross-country or the tension of show jumping.

Am very much looking forward to it!

The tickets are very expensive. It will be interesting to see if they manage to sell them. A lot of people obviously want to go, just to say they went, but the pricing is ridiculous. £20 for the cheapest seats, but if you want to go and see an Athletics session when a medal is decided it will cost you at least £50. I doubt there will be that many tickets available at these prices and obviously the view will not be great, most likely in the corner just before the finishing straight which means you haven't a view of the finishing line. I went to the Don Valley stadium a few years ago and paid £10 to see a day of top class athletics and had a seat right on the finishing line. Despite this you see very little of the 100m race as it is over so quickly, much better watching on the TV with countless slow motion reruns. I am also going to Sheffield in a few weeks to see the world short track speed skating world championships and that is costing me a fiver, so just shows how overpriced the olympics are.

Great stuff! The excitement of seeing plans for major sport just down the road... the highlighter is out looking for what I'm going to apply for tickets for, but with the major issue of "what if I win all the tickets I apply for?!", "How will I pay for them all?!" "WHY DID THEY DECIDE ON THIS MAD TICKETING POLICY?!"!!! All they needed to do was add another stage to ticketing. You apply, you find out if you've won tickets, you get 14 days (or something like that) to confirm attendance and pay, any rejected tickets go on general sale! EASY!!!

The best day will be #17; when it's all finished and forgotten

on ticket pricing:
Some people here are only loking at this from a single person perspective.
I want to take my family to see the Gymnastics team events - well, to get a seat with anything like a decent view is in excess of £95+ per head.
Just getting to the arena will cost us £300. Then 5 x £95. Food for the day only available from (hugely inflated) arena vendors ...

Would Mr Coe like to tell us just how this is "affordable" for the vast majority of families up and down teh land?

I'm surprised they havent got one of the usual big ticket agencies involved so that they can stick on 'convenience' fees and booking fees and credit card charges etc then charge you £2.50 for posting out the tickets to you. Or maybe they have.

Cannot wait! I'll be taking my four-year-old to as many events as i can, specifically the sessions where there'll be special prices available for youngsters. 100m mens qualifying for £20 and a few spare bob for my son? That sounds like a very reasonable price to me, especially for a once-in-a-lifetime event. Also excited about witnessing some of the less fashionable sports, like handball. I just want to witness the whole atmosphere. Don't care whether it's a final or a qualifier; men or women; global game or minority sport. I for one will be having a few very special days out!

A Premier League game in London costs around £40-50 for an average seat. I've paid £70 for a Champions League ticket this season. I don't see how £50 is a rip off (bareing in mind that this includes your London transport as well). It's no doubt better value for money as the sessions will last a lot longer as well.

As people have already pointed out - this is a once in a lifetime experience. I just don't understand the negativity.

@11; Sorry, I should have qualified that; if you're looking to, say, go to two sessions every day of the Games and watch a different sport each time then depending on what you choose I believe you will be having to fork out at least £1000.

I accept that there are many £20 tickets on sale but let's face it, these are predominantly for the thin pickings of the minor preliminary matches; now it's clear the organisers are trying to convey that watching a Kazakh take on a Cuban in the first round of the wrestling will provide as much satisfaction as watching the 100m final, and that patently will not be the case.

I'm not one of these naysayers who didn't want the Games to come over to London at all, I'm absolutely delighted that it's being held in the city I've grown up in, I just feel that I should be able to watch a large chunk of the SIGNIFICANT action for a rather more reasonable price than I'm being asked to.

And that's not withstanding having to buy tickets for seats you're not told the location of, not allowing you to give preference options, committing you to buying any tickets you win in the ballot, and taking payment soon after which doesn't give you time to save up money to buy more tickets for significant events.

Some sports have been priced reasonably, namely taekwondo, judo, hockey (surprisingly), football (also surprisingly), fencing, BMX cycling, boxing non-finals, badminton and archery - but some haven't, like weightlifting, water polo, equestrian and most notably beach volleyball, which isn't the most significant sport at these Games by any stretch of the imagination yet is commanding the highest prices.

At the end of the day, we're living in times of relative hardship where people don't have a great deal of money to spend on frivolities like these - I presume many in this thread do, which is why they're being so blase about it - and it's not as though there'll be much time to try and save up to afford a bit extra.

I think the most sensible approach to take is to put your name in the ballot for three or four of the big events, seeing what if anything you get and then try and pick up some of what will surely be a mass of unsold tickets sporadically in the run up to the Games themselves.

I for one am quite excited at the prospect of being able to watch some of the Olympic events with my family...on TV at home.

Now don't get me wrong; I am well aware that I may lose out on the atmosphere by not actually being there, but I KNOW I won't miss the journey into the city.

To all those who have not booked time off work, may you all have smooth commutes during those 2 weeks!

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@37: You're correct in what you say, many people don't have lots of money to spend on such treats. I certainly wasn't being blasé about spending £70 on a football ticket. But this is something I save and budget for from time to time as it's something I love. I imagine the buzz of seeing an Olympics in my home city would far outweigh this though.

I certainly don't imagine that too many people will go and watch an event a day. That really would be an expensive fortnight but for the majority who want to see a few days of competition, even without the cheapest tickets could probably do so for somewhere just over the £100 mark. And for those that can't, there is the opportunity to watch the marathon and road cycling for free. And not to mention the dozens and dozens of free community events. Plus there will be big screens scattered around which will hopefully build a 'Henman Hill' type atmosphere.

@32: Ollie, as far as I'm concerned it should be tickets first, volunteering second - and also, if volunteers have got a ticket for a session they're being told to miss because of a shift, I wonder how many of them will say to their supervisors "you either let me go or I'm walking out of here and you'll have to find someone else to do my job".

At the end of the day you're a volunteer, there's nothing compelling you to be there, and I'm being asked to stand at an information point during the 100m final when I've got a ticket for it, I know which I'd rather choose.

Incidentally, I rather resent the fact that you and your BBC Sport colleagues are acting a mouthpiece for LOCOG in trying to artificially stir up demand by getting us worried that a large proportion of the tickets will be snapped up in this window; I feel confident that many, many tickets will be unsold and that's why I don't feel like a "brave man" in biding my time to pick up tickets later on in the process.

Suprise suprise, many [not all] of these micro blogging web wannabee commandos moaning about the pain this event will bring. Wake up and look out of the window, we've got a world to build! Sport might not be everyone's cup of tea but it is to many, many more. And remember, this is somewhere where GB wins things! Hurrah!

I don't understand why some people are so negative about the 2012 Olympic games in London. I think it is a great honour for us to host it and the financial and social rewards will be substantial.

However, I do hope that our opening and closing ceremonies display the best of British and aren't politically correct garbage like our effort at the Beijing closing ceremony. This is a chance to really show off the great and unique things about Britain. Let's put on something truly impressive.

@32: Thanks Ollie for contacting LOCOG. I still agree with Murc that this is a totally unnecessary and shoddy way to treat volunteers. I am not sure many people will be in a position to give away hundreds of pounds worth of tickets to family members or tie up that amount of cash for so long without knowing the outcome.

@41: I agree LOCOG could be causing themselves some serious problems with this. If a large number of volunteers also become ticket holders … it’s a problem they need not have caused themselves

I'm really pleased it'll only be £20 to see some events .... oh, and the £200 that train operators will be charging for a return trip from the North West during that fortnight... and the £100 minimum per person for a bed for the night! I suspect for me and my family/friends, the 'live' experience will be via a television screen...

Sorry, but as with over 90% of the population, I don't live in London, so the Olympics may as well be held in Timbuktu .... on second thoughts, it'd be cheaper to get there!

I am really looking forward to the Olympics. It's like a chance to blow the country I love an enormous kiss on the smackers. I am sure the BBC will see it that way too!

I'm not negative about any of this, i'm looking forward to going but am dreading choosing what exactly to see, mainly down the the uncertainy of how much I will end up paying. Do they expect us to blindly sign up for several events that could cost a total of either £60 or £400? That's a serious difference in prices - one is a weekends going out money and the other the equivelant to a mortgage payment.

What a complete waste of time and money.

Even though I do not live anywhere near London (thank heavens for that) I was intrigued to see the prices and all I can say is what an absolute rip-off. Obvious that that toadying little gnome Coe has got to repay the massive debt somehow.

Not even near and I can't wait for it to finish.

Keith Mc
Liverpool
(sits back and awaits being moderated into oblivion)

£50 to watch a game of football????????????????

Are you mad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A special request to the BBC editors: please please please show the women's INDOOR volleyball (beach as well), for obvious reasons. Last time round reason, despite indoor volleyball being a regular event throughout the Olympics, you only provided highlights of a couple of games near the end.

@45 - There's another cost I think people have forgotten about as well; the cheapest tickets may be £20, but how much will they actually be when the hated Ticketmaster have applied their processing, handling and postage fees?

WHAT A RIP OFF!

You would need a bank loan (if the banks are willing to lend you money) to take your typical family to watch the Olympics.

I have worked out that to go to one football game would cost me and my family over £300 (tickets + travel + food and drink).

It is an utter disgrace.

*sigh*

Do people actualy read/listen to announcements in press re: the Games?

@52 - Tickets won't be sold via 3rd party. Only 2012 website.

@45/49 - Old Trafford is hosting football. So it might only be Men's U-23 and Women's competition but you can still be part of the experience.

And as for those criticising LOCOG for the way they are handling the recruitment process. They're having to screen 250k applications, and then interview 100k people. 30 mins an interview and you're looking at over a year. There's no way they can wait for people to decide what tickets they may or may not want before starting the selections. If you're lucky enough to be chosen as a volunteer and have purchased tickets I'm sure you can swap shifts with someone if you really need to!

Plus, not sure why people are moaning about the prices now, the price list has been published for months!

I am outraged at the price of tickets for the 2012 London Olympics. An average Category C seat for the Gymnastics Team final is £185. I live in the North-West of England and 2 hours of gymnastics would cost a family of four; £740 for tickets, £300 for one nights accommodation, £120 for petrol, £300 for food and drink, not to mention £60 for transport in London. This would mean a total cost of £1520. Thank-you Mr. Coe. I for one will be refusing to subsidise your corporate chums by not taking my family to the Games. The Olympics should be for the people of Britain and not just Visa Card executives.

I think the BBC is the best place to watch the Olympics, not live.

None of the waiting around for events to be set up, No high priced concession stands, No high ticket price (bar the licence fee), No lottery of a ticket allocation, No tall person standing up every 5 minutes in the seat in front, Ability to watch every sport and no risk of getting to London only for it to rain for the next 2 weeks.

So having looked at the schedule, all that's left is to sit back on a comfy sofa and relax.
£1500 on tickets? You can get 2 very nice TVs set up for that!

It's looking like the £20 tickets to the Mens 100m Heats could be the most oversubscribed ticket at the entire games.

In the times we're living in the ticket prices do look a bit high.

I would love to win the equivalent of the national lottery and get some £20.12 tickets for the opening ceremony just means i'd have to come down twice not sure thats really on budget. The plan at the moment would be to come down for a £20 Athletics session in the morning, two games of Basketball in the afternoon, another £20, and two cheapish tickets for the boxing/diving/handball/hockey/water polo in the evening. £120-140 for the two of us. I just don't want tickets for everything!!

It's a once in a lifetime thing and i'll never see it again. For £60-70 for a day out, compared to West End/Premier League/Concert Tickets it's not that bad!

How great to have this breakdown as a heads-up on how to organise one's bystanding, ticket buying, tv watching! Really useful. Have book marked this so I can go back and revisit it as the time approaches. Thank you.

@55...£300 for food and drink?!? Are you a family of 4 who can only eat gourmet food? I very much doubt that you will have to spend anywhere near that much but then by not quoting an outragous figure you are not really making your point are you? If you are so angry about what you see as over inflated prices and the inconvience that these games will cause then a BBC blogging web page is not really the right place to be, I bet you are also one of the 100 odd people who have complained about Rastamouse.
I am very much looking forward to these Olympics and will simply pick sports and rounds of the events that are within my budget, as being a part of the occasion will be worth it by a very long way!

@54: As you say, the tickets will be only sold through the London 2012 site, but that's going to be administered by Ticketmaster - their logo was at the bottom of the first released list of prices - and if you've ever had the misfortune of buying tickets from them in the past, you'll know that they charge you an extra 10-20% of the ticket price in fees.

And as for volunteers, why couldn't they have just delayed the sale of tickets until later in the year so at least most of the hopefuls would've had a clearer idea of what their commitments would be? Furthermore, LOCOG have explicitly stated that nobody will be allowed to swap shifts to attend an event; if you've got a ticket that clashes, you'll have to take your chances in the re-sale program.

@57: I think the ceremonies tickets will be the most oversubscribed in the Games, personally, you could have millions trying to get those.

@60 - Personally cannot understand why anyone would pay money to go to an opening ceremony ...

But thinking further on the ticketing - have just worked out that if I satisfy the family (of 5) ambition and go to the Gymnastics Team event, it will cost me more than the family holiday planned for a week in July.
.. just can't be done, sorry Seb.

I am so excited!

I have spent the morning planning my schedule for the games and will be getting the time off work asap!

To people moaning about the prices, the Blue Ribbon events like the 100m final will cost a lot of money i'm afraid. I'm haviung to decide whether I watch the cycling finals or athletics as I cant afford both. Cest la vie. I'm making the most of the cheap prices on Handball, Table Tennis, and Tennis and getting my fill of other sports and you never know, might be inspired to take one up. I've worked out that attending 7 events will cost me £265 which at under £38 per event isnt too bad i think

I so can't wait for this next year. And look forward to the BBC's immense coverage

Had a look at the ticket prices and for those events where I am able to do a comparison with what's charged at equivalent non-Olympic events it doesn't seem so bad. The tennis prices seem to be similar to what I've paid for tickets at Wimbledon and the football prices seem similar to what I've paid for an England game at Wembley.

I've signed up to volunteer for the entire Games through my employer, who're a corporate sponsor, so I won't be able to apply for tickets and won't have the chance to see much on TV, but if I wasn't I'd be applying for tickets to watch one of the sports I don't normally watch.

@59: I'm just saying what it would cost me. We like good food so £75 per person over two days of eating and drinking out is nothing. I could also drive a smaller car and use less petrol. I could stay at a cheaper hotel. I could buy cheaper tickets in rubbish seats or for meaningless events too. My 5 year old daughter likes gymnastics and would expect to see medals presented at the end of the session. Otherwise she would think the whole trip pointless. At the end of the day I've made a decision on what it would cost me. In my eyes the ticket prices for families having to travel from outside of London aren't anywhere near value for money. Especially when you have to factor in travel and accommodation expenses too. Over 2 million tickets are being given away to corporate and media people. I've made a decision not to subsidise their freebies via the cost of tickets I might have purchased.

Since when have London ever thought there were people who lived in England outside of London? Cost of travel/accommodation was probably never even considered.

I hope the games are a flop for London in all honesty - the idea of Coe and co smiling away infront of us cos they successfully managed to con the public into handing over huge amounts of money turns my stomach.

One day sports fans will try and get ridiculous ticket prices driven back down to sane levels, but until then, the likes of Coe and other suits will not be getting a penny from me

Wholeheartedly agree with Kapnag!! I live in Northern Ireland. Nothing required from us but our money. No training venues, no Olympic heritage just hand over your cash. Imagine the cost of getting to London from here never mind accommodation costs!! Londoners never think of other English people, much less the Scots, Welsh and last on the list Northern Ireland.

May I point out to all those affirming that this will be 'a once in a lifetime experience', that there are many people drawing breath now (and hopefully next year) who were also alive in 1948. So for them the London Olympics will be a twice in a lifetime experience... Or do the correspondents to this blog just ignore people in their 70s and 80s (much as the NHS does, apparently)?

When this bid was being sold to us it was going to be "an Olympics for the whole country". The published schedule shows almost everything of any consequence being staged in the evening or morning, effectively excluding everyone outside of London from attending unless fill the coffers of the London tourist industry. What a betrayal of our trust. Please explain why you lied to us.

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I'm very keen on all sports and registered with London 2012 ticketing as soon as I could. I have a football season ticket, a county cricket membership, Sky subscription - so I'm used to spending £1,000+ a year on sport just for me.
As a dry run for the Olympics, I took my daughters to the O2 for the Worlds last year. We went in the cheapest seats for the women's all-round final, which I recall cost something like £35 each - reasonable enough. Food was outrageously expensive of course!
The view however was dreadful. I note that tickets for the equivalent session at the Olympics is £50, which is okay (but with a family most people could not afford too many of these events even at those prices.)
Actually to be able to see something of what's going on, though, would cost £185 each (in the middle price tier). I've also read that approximately 20% of tickets will be at each price tier, so these are by no means "good" seats. I would therefore be looking at £740 just on tickets for one two hour event. That would be a once-in-a-lifetime treat!
I just worry that there may be empty seats - perhaps not at the top price (£450 each for this event, say, of £1,600 for a family of four); there are some very rich people around...... But if you're rich, you'll want the top tier. I don't see many takers for the £295 second priced tickets.
My concern about prices then is not with the lowest tier (or even second lowest for some events) - and not really with the top, because they've got to get the money from somewhere, but with the middle tiers.

Dave thanks for this helpful guide, although it is perhaps a bit too focused on British interest.

One of the bigger storys of the Olympics could be the Phelps vs Thorpe duel in the pool. When should I be looking to buy the tickets? Any idea which event they will be definitely both competing in, and with a strong chance to reach the final? I was thinking trying the 400m freestyle final, or should I go for earlier heats to be sure to see them?

I know exactly what I'll be doing on Olympics Super Saturday...I'll be getting married!!!

Dave

A wonderful article and really helpful for me to decide which days to try and enjoy the action in person and which to sit at home and watch everything unfold.

However I have 2 dilemmas when trying to decide which tickets to buy:

1. I live in Leeds and obviously don't want additional costs of having to stay overnight, I want to go back home on the train. If I want to go to the athletics one evening which finishes at 10.00-10.30pm how can I be sure that there will be a train late enough to get me back home. Is work being done with train companies etc to have more trains or later trains to and from London from main cities and towns during games time?

2. I want to go and see 1 night of athletics live, 1 night of swimming live etc. Clearly any tickets are likely to be oversubscribed, particularly in the cheaper price categories and therefore it will be a lottery as to whether you are allocated a ticket or not. If I just apply for 1 night of athletics then I might not get it and the rest sell out, meaning I can't go. However, if I apply for several nights of athletics in order to increase my chances then I could end up in getting all sessions, and I can't afford to go down to London on multiple occasions and pay ticket prices for every session!! Any idea how I can get around this?

Finally, different subject, but in your role as organising the TV viewing, any clues on to what will be chosen as the theme tune yet?

Would like to know if anyone has any news on what will happen with tickets for Athetes Parents , Partners and Familes. Our daughter is supposed to be a medal hope (although still needs to qualify) but we have had no firm info on how to obtain tickets, do we wait until after trials which by then all the tickets will be sold or will we get the option to purchase tickets after qualification ? I do recall an article months ago on this webste confirming an offer of 2 tickets per family , 1 ticket for some events will be made but nothing has been firmed up by the BOA etc, the other option is we try to purchase tickets in the normal way and sell them on if we don't require them.What a mess ! wouldnt like to be my husband if he needs to fight me for the ticket to watch one of our daughters races !

For the 4 events I would like to apply for tickets, will cost me a total of £1650, yes that is One Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty Pounds. What a disgraceful RIP OFF these 'Games' will be. Instead I shall take my family on a 2 week holiday to Trinidad for the same price. Mr Coe you should be ashamed.

I cannot for the life of me believe that it is less then eighteen months now until the start of the games and the time has surely flown by so fast! Before you know it, it will be July 27th! One year to go! I have alredy started saving for tickets (given the fact that I'm resigning to the idea that I will not make it as a volunteer) and about to book my two weeks off work for next year so I'm rearing to go. I'm so excited, its gonna be the best summer this country will ever have in our lifetime.

Rather than the imperative 'What to watch.....', shouldn't it be 'What you can watch'? After all, it's the BBC who is the public servant.

@54 "And as for those criticising LOCOG for the way they are handling the recruitment process. They're having to screen 250k applications, and then interview 100k people. 30 mins an interview and you're looking at over a year"

Easy. Start processing earlier (too late, but could have been planned for). Sell tickets later.... simples.

Or say to volunteers that they will help 'match' volunteers with tickets with other volunteers for up to X days and thus arrange swapsies.... or that volunteers with tickets will be the only category of people with a buy back guarantee from the organisers... or even at least email them with a version of @32.... or any of the above

---- the silence the volunteers are getting is deafening, and goodwill (at least from where I'm sitting) is rapidly disappearing.

The schedule looks amazing and I'm equally excited, even though it's realistically quite a while off... can't wait to get back to the UK for this after my travels in Africa.

Not much hype happening down here at all about the Olympics as yet - probably because everyone's still experiencing the tail end of the World Cup euphoria from last year! No doubt the athletics news coverage in South Africa at least would kick off with some new controversy about Caster Semenya, gender testing and the like - entertaining, but hardly anything like the awesome BBC coverage.. Looking forward to it!

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What I'm struggling with is how many tickets to apply for. We (two adults, one child) really want to go to at least one event, but given that our top event is cycling (very popular), I think we probably need to apply for a number of different days. But I have no sense at all as to how likely we'd be to get tickets - so I have no idea whether to apply for 2 days or the whole lot. We can't afford to pay for tickets for more than one or two events, so I can't throw caution to the wind and just apply for all of them. But then I worry that we won't get any tickets at all!
I'm really frustrated by it to be honest - I wish they had put some thought into a buyback system, or something that allowed you a few days to accept or reject. I see from earlier posts that they are allowing something like this for volunteers, but it feels unfair that people will have to limit the number of tickets they apply for (with all that this implies in terms of the likelihood of them getting tickets at all) because they simply can't afford to pay for more than one or two tickets.

Now it appears that there is not ENOUGH money for our Athletes to compete, WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE???????????

Really looking forward to the London Olympics and the schedule makes it sound even more exciting now that I read it.