Olympics Day 6
I was recently having dinner with some friends when I heard an incredible story about getting tickets to the Opening Ceremony and other high profile events.
There have been widespread complaints in these Olympics regarding sold out events having numerous empty seats available. While this does happen at most sporting events worldwide, it has not been just the odd empty seat or two but apparently large noticeable numbers of unoccupied seats at events that have been deemed "sold out". To assume that all of these are no-shows would be naive.
The story I heard last night may be able to explain some of that. While there is no way I have the talent or to coherently put together a winding and complex 30 minute story involving over twenty people purchasing tickets and attempting to make deals with three different high profile scalpers, I can say that businesses bought seats for the opening ceremony at about $8000 USD per seat (nothing really unusual there) on the morning of the event.
However, this same businessperson discussed in length about how company staff had collected bank money, reaching well over $150,000 USD in cash in RMB ($1 USD = 6.8RMB) to secure opening ceremony seats from organized scalpers, despite banks being closed (the deal was struck the night before). Frantic calls were made to colleagues and business partners to rush to ATMs and use other methods to secure large amounts of cash which were then collected and help. Deals were struck in a 5 star hotel lobby, after other sources with similar demands and prices, had fallen through... In one of the secret locations, apparently an office in one of Beijing's office towers was literally, stacked with tickets to all kinds of events with a number of high profile clients screening through and selecting tickets for various events.
While I am in no position to comment about the source or the tickets or the practices of such organizations, it is most certainly sheds some light on how some high profile events have not been filled to anywhere near capacity. I only wish I could have seen "stacked tickets" with my own eyes.
What I did see, however, at the Bird's Nest in my two visits this week was the government/VIP section was nearly empty both times.
There have been widespread complaints in these Olympics regarding sold out events having numerous empty seats available. While this does happen at most sporting events worldwide, it has not been just the odd empty seat or two but apparently large noticeable numbers of unoccupied seats at events that have been deemed "sold out". To assume that all of these are no-shows would be naive.
The story I heard last night may be able to explain some of that. While there is no way I have the talent or to coherently put together a winding and complex 30 minute story involving over twenty people purchasing tickets and attempting to make deals with three different high profile scalpers, I can say that businesses bought seats for the opening ceremony at about $8000 USD per seat (nothing really unusual there) on the morning of the event.
However, this same businessperson discussed in length about how company staff had collected bank money, reaching well over $150,000 USD in cash in RMB ($1 USD = 6.8RMB) to secure opening ceremony seats from organized scalpers, despite banks being closed (the deal was struck the night before). Frantic calls were made to colleagues and business partners to rush to ATMs and use other methods to secure large amounts of cash which were then collected and help. Deals were struck in a 5 star hotel lobby, after other sources with similar demands and prices, had fallen through... In one of the secret locations, apparently an office in one of Beijing's office towers was literally, stacked with tickets to all kinds of events with a number of high profile clients screening through and selecting tickets for various events.
While I am in no position to comment about the source or the tickets or the practices of such organizations, it is most certainly sheds some light on how some high profile events have not been filled to anywhere near capacity. I only wish I could have seen "stacked tickets" with my own eyes.
What I did see, however, at the Bird's Nest in my two visits this week was the government/VIP section was nearly empty both times.
posted by Batcha at
8:58 AM
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