2012 London Olympics Upset: Online Means Long Lines for Ticket Holders

The beauty of living in the 21st Century is that for the thousands of people attending the 2012 London Olympics this year, tickets could easily be purchased online and from every corner of the world.

Just a few minutes are all it takes these days for one to acquire a virtual pass to witness history in the making. With such impressive technology widely available, you would naturally assume that standing in line for tickets at the 2012 London Olympics games would not be an issue that would disrupt one’s travel plans to England in this modern age.

But there have been a lot of surprises at these games so far. The Queen parachuting out of a helicopter, defending world champs not making the cut, and nearly every virtual ticket holder waiting in queues at least 100 people deep to obtain their previously purchased tickets!

With spectators coming in from around the world, many 2012 London Olympics patrons wisely felt that ordering tickets online and picking them up in London would be a safer bet than risking them arriving too late via snail mail. However, they didn’t count on the 2012 London Olympics committee engaging a company that would incorporate paper into the process. In this day and age, even the airport—notorious for delays and long waits—understands the logic and convenience of using timesaving kiosks. Efficiently located kiosks could have eliminated the long lines and time wasted.

Some fans spent up to six hours waiting for their already bought and paid for tickets. This is time that could have been better spent taking in all the wonderful attractions that the city of London has to offer. Furthermore, it’s time that could have been spent stimulating the city’s local economy. After all, isn’t that one of the major perks to hosting the Olympic games in the first place?

At the next Olympic games, we can only hope that technology has caught up. Maybe, the next city to host will have gone QLess by then. Which cities do you think have the worst queues, who could benefit the most from going QLess?