Up to 10,000 tickets were sold, when there were no seats available for any date, whether it be preliminary heats to the grand final. Originally (during the first round of ticket bidding in Spring 2011), the aquatic endeavour was not oversubscribed, due to more popular events around the same time. A data error, tracked back to an employee rather than machinery, created thousands of nonexistent tickets in the second round of bidding, as there were still spaces unfilled.

Approximately 3,000 out of the original 10,000 ticket holders have been asked to return their seats, in exchange for another event they did not win previously. Many large events such as diving and athletics are still free, which could mean a profitable compensation for the 10,000. There will be few complaints from everyone, except others with synchronised swimming tickets that would rather see something more high-profile. 

A spokeswoman from Locog (the organisers of the Olympic Games in Summer 2012) said this: “As a result of finalising the seating configurations in our venues and reconciling the millions of Olympic and Paralympic ticket orders against the seating plans for around 1,000 sporting sessions, we have discovered an error in seats available in four synchronised swimming sessions. In December we contacted around 3,000 customers who had applied for tickets in the four sessions during the second round sales process. We are exchanging their synchronised swimming tickets for tickets in other sports that they originally applied for.”

It is universally accepted that ticketing has been one of the hardest challenges of initiating London 2012. Hundreds of thousands of applicants never even received a ticket, so the 10,000 with false tickets are lucky regardless of their event. The website was so rushed, Locog took many complaints of the incompetency of it. 

More than a million further tickets are to be resold in May this year, so if you didn’t get any before, here’s your last chance before the Games! From Friday the 6th of January, people will be able to put their tickets back on sale if they cannot attend, or do not want to

What do you think? Have you got some synchronised swimming tickets and may you need to swap? Or are you secure with other tickets? Or did you get any at all? Leave your thoughts below!