Olympic organizers had well over 2 million hits on the website set up to handle tickets sales this week.
“It is going fantastic,” said Caley Denton, vice president of
ticketing and consumer marketing for the 2010 Vancouver Organizing Committee.
“The interest has been high, the feedback on the site has been
really good and we have been hearing a lot from people that it is simple and
easy and they are not having any issues.
“We had over two million page-views over the course of Friday
and the weekend so it has been going very well.”
Denton said VANOC was starting to look at data on actual ticket
requests but no numbers would be available for a few more days.
Officials are also on the lookout for brokers and scalpers
buying blocks of tickets. But so far, said Denton, there is no evidence of it.
“We monitor the site all the time… but we haven’t seen any big
activity so it has been good,” he said.
“Canadians seemed to have listened and they are taking their
time and they are looking through. We are seeing a lot of activity and they
have built carts and they have stuff in there but they are waiting to submit.”
Tickets went on sale at midnight last Thursday and for the
first few hours there was a problem, which blocked purchasers’ ability to
choose alternate events.
It was fixed by around 3 a.m., said Denton, but not before
about 200 people experienced problems.
Dorian Banks was one of those affected by the problem. He signed up for 2010 Olympic tickets within minutes of the Internet website going live. He had a plan — he wanted tickets to the ceremonies and of course hockey.
In all he planned to spend $24,364 on his 2010 Olympic experience with family and friends. But now the CEO of an Internet access company said he isn’t sure if he will get tickets or not, or what he might be charged for after there was a mix-up with his Internet requests through www.vancouver2010.com .
“I put in my request within five minutes of the site going
live,” Banks said from Phoenix, where he is currently on business.
Just after midnight Saturday he got a confirmation e-mail
addressed to someone else but containing almost a perfect copy of his ticket
requests. Only the fact that the confirmation said he had requested accessible
seating was incorrect.
Banks, the co-founder of Metrobridge Networks International
Inc., a premier high-speed wireless broadband provider for businesses with
operations in Canada and the United States, thought it was likely just a mail
merge program problem and didn’t worry about it too much.
But when an hour or so later he got another e-mail to the same
wrong addressee but now with incorrect ticket information as well, he began to
worry.
“The weird thing about it was the subject line was different,
like they were correcting the first one they sent out,” he said.
“But then it was a different order so it was quite confusing.
Then I started thinking they might have a big nightmare on their hands if their
database is mixing stuff up.
“Certainly it lowers the confidence. I don’t know now if my
order is on (the other person’s) credit card or maybe (his) choices will get
billed to my credit card.”
The confirmation e-mails, from
customercare@tickets.vancouver2010.com
,
also told Banks that the program which would allow him to choose alternate
selections for his top choices did not work initially and asked him to call the
2010 Vancouver Organizing Committee before end of day to choose alternate
sessions or events.
Banks wonders what will happen to people like him who are away
on business and don’t have an opportunity to phone in or who aren’t checking
e-mails all the time.
But Denton, said steps have been taken to remedy the situation.
“It wasn’t a system function problem,” said Denton. “It was
human error working outside of the system, which gives us a lot of confidence
that the system is correct. No one’s order was ever affected. It was purely somebody
trying to merge some data.”
Denton said no personal information, such as credit card
numbers, were compromised and that all ticket requests through the site are
still valid.
“We have phoned all the accounts…
that were affected and either spoken to them or left a
message,” he said.
“There was no personal information contained anywhere.”
To choose Olympic tickets go to www.vancouver2010.com . Anyone from outside of Canada must approach their national Olympic sporting organization for guidance on how to buy tickets. They are the only authorized place to get tickets.
