Things to know about the London 2012 Olympics

Planning a trip to London for the 2012 Olympics?

Information about the London 2012 Olympics

Here it is round-up article on the 2012 Olympics in London that covers ticket costs, free events, buying tickets, and how to avoid falling prey to one of the many London 2012 Olympics scams.

Ticket Prices & Special offers

The London Olympics organizers have stated that ticket prices for the London Olympics will range between £20 and £725, though you can realistically expect to pay between £50 and £150 ($232) for non-final sporting events. You can definitely expect to pay anywhere between £425 ($660) and £725 ($1,125) for sporting event finals such as the men’s 100 meter sprint, gymnastics, swimming, and beach volleyball. Surprisingly, the Football men’s final and tennis finals will only cost £185 ($287) and £225 respectively.

There'll be special offers for adults aged 60 or older, and children aged 16 who will only pay £16 ($24) for any sporting event (not including final events). Children under 16 years of age pay their age (i.e.14 and 15 year-olds pay £14 and £15 respectively).

Buying Tickets

As far as ticket information about the London 2012 Olympics, you will find that the London Organising Committee of Games (LOCOG) is the main provider of tickets for the London Olympics in 2012. Having said this, there were other authorized UK resellers such SportsWorld who were selling tickets a few weeks but have now run out.

There are still many more authorized and bogus resellers in the UK and abroad who are selling tickets to the public. If you’re from the UK, the best way to tell whether a website selling tickets for the London Olympics is legit or unofficial, it’s to use the website checker tool provided by the official London2012 website.

If you live overseas, your only way to get tickets for the London Olympics it’s via your local National Olympic Committee (NOC) where you live, who will also be able to direct you to authorized ticket resellers in your country.

Reselling Tickets

Tickets for the London 2010 Olympics went on sale between the 15 March 2011 and 26 April 2011 of this year. At that time, you were able to apply for as many Olympics tickets as you wanted to but what many people failed to realize was the fact that you would be charged for all winning tickets that you applied for. If you are one of the thousands of people that applied for lots of Olympic tickets that you didn't actually want, there is good news!


Locog has finally announced that they are launching a ticket exchange program between the 6 Jan 2012 and 3 Feb 2012. This means, you will be able to resell tickets that you no longer want and get the full value printed on the ticket. However, there are two catches two this: 1) You can only resell tickets through the official London Olympics website. 2) You aren’t guaranteed to get your money back so, it nobody wants to buy your ticket(s) you’re stuck!

Also, you can kiss good-bye the idea of reselling the Olympic tickets at a profit on eBay. According to the organizers for the London Olympics, they will fine anyone that is caught reselling Olympic tickets in the so called “black market”.

London Olympics Ceremonies

The grand opening ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics will take place on the 27 July 2012, while the closing ceremony for the London Olympics will take place on the 12 August 2012.

The opening ceremony is without the doubt, the ceremony everyone’s looking forward to because of the traditional parade by athletes representing all corners of the world. Even the Spice Girls, Iron Maiden and the Beatles legend - Paul McCartney – are rumored to be headlining the opening ceremony for the London Olympics.

Tickets for the opening ceremony and closing of the 2012 Olympics will cost anywhere between £20.12 ($31) and £2,012 ($3105), though you can bet that the demand for £20.12 tickets is "crazy", which means a one-in-a-million chance of you getting your hands on the cheapest tickets for the opening ceremony.

Watching the Olympics & “London Live”

If you didn’t win any tickets or don’t fancy forking out any cash for the London Olympic Games, you will still be able to watch the London Olympics and attend free sporting events at the London Olympics. These free sporting events include the road cycling and marathon races, as well as the triathlon events.

Hyde Park and Victoria Park will also be the main hubs during the London Olympics for live music concerts, and watching the Olympics live since the organizers of the London Olympics are planning to set-up huge screens for free viewing.

The organizers of the London Olympics will also be hosting free events on the days leading up to the opening of the London Olympics. Hyde Park will be the main hot-spot to be since Madonna (11 Jul) and Bruce Springsteen (14 Jul) will be performing live.

By the way, if you do plan to attend the free events at Hyde Park and Victoria Park, you will be wise to book ahead of time since the “London Live” organizers won’t allow overcrowding.

You can bet that Hyde Park and Victoria Park will be jam-packed with visitors looking to enjoy the free events. Luckily, you can guarantee entry to these venues by registering at the “London Live website” (Mind you, they charge a fee of £3.50 for this service).

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