Has anyone got tickets?
I managed to get tickets to the Volleyball and Football and then stupidly booked my holiday for 2 weeks leaving the day the Olympic Stadium opens for its first events so will not be able to attend any events there.
Because of this I managed to get tickets to Saturdays event at The Olympic Stadium which wasn’t very well advertised or thought about too much! The event was 2012 Hours To Go. An evening of “entertainment” and athletics. Anyway, I’ll get onto that later! I also went to the Hockey tournament in the afternoon. Here’s my impression of the whole place.
Stratford station to the Olympic Park. Confusing signs pointing you all over the place, not too well worked, it is going to be chaos at that station during the Olympics! When we eventually got to the entrance we were greeted with big signs saying no drinks, aerosols, bombs, knives or cats allowed in the Olympic Park. We then queued up further to get to some tents where we had to remove all of our clothes and walk through a machine which beeped anyway whilst our bags and clothes were scanned. They then pulled me over saying I had water in my bag and it wasn’t allowed, which it was because we weren’t at The Olympics and at a test, after a discussion they allowed me to take it in! So far, piss poor, and this is with a very small crowd of people entering!
We showed the lady at the entrance our tickets to be allowed in! No scanning etc because you weren’t going in to an event. I believe come the Olympics anyone will be able to walk into the Olympic Park unless they issue tickets with tickets to allow entrance! The lady then pointed us to the Riverbank Arena to watch the hockey. Down there, turn right, walk for approx half an hour! We thought she was exaggerating, she wasn’t! It was some distance downhill then uphill. We walked past a few food outlets and toilets. It all looked nice. The river was decorated well, loads of benches, very open space, it looked a nice place. We eventually got to the Riverbank Arena where we had to queue for about another half an hour. There were probably 20 people infront of us in the queue. The ticket scanners didn’t really work. It was really poor. Come the Olympics they need to put barriers up to make people queue in lines with 2 people at the end scanning, because the way they were doing it didn’t work.
We eventually got in, was given a clap banner, walked up into the Riverbank Arena and it was nice, really nice. If you’ve been to Fulham away, it was like the away stand! Scaffoldy, jump a bit and the stand feels like it’s going to collapse. The only difference was the seats were decent sized, the leg room was good and there is no roof! There was an atmosphere in there, created by the clap banners. Again, if you don’t know what these are and have been to Fulham away, it’s what the home fans use to generate an atmosphere because they can’t do it without them.
If you are going to the hockey, a word of warning. One, the wind picks up in there and you will freeze, two, at half time they water the pitch, this is a six sprinkler system which spray from the corner flags and half way line. As we found out, a little wind plus these soaks the entire crowd. I would suggest at half time you get out of the stand and watch the kids playing hockey in the inflatable pitches outside!
At the end of the event we walked down to the Olympic Stadium for our evening of “Entertainment” and athletics. Again, around a 20min walk to the stadium. On the way we hit the toilets, and as there were around 10000 people around max it was going to be simple. The toilets were heaving, many doors broken where they’re budget, and the toilets are clear to the public outside the toilets. Really badly designed and I dread to think how bad they will be come the Olympics when they have probably closed to 150’000 in the Olympic Park before their events in all the places.
The shops in the Olympic Park were a makeshift shop where they had hot food served up one end, drinks and snacks in the middle then tills at the far end. Slow moving and overpriced. There weren’t many hot food places in the park, but it was a test event, I’m certain that will improve.
We then got to the queue for the Olympic Stadium. Queuing at a bridge which led us to the wrong end of the stadium due to no signs. The queue was probably 50 people wide, which funnelled in to 4 queues. Again, poor. They should have put barriers up to show where the queues should be. After another half an hour to 45mins of queuing we got through. Again, we were handed clap banners. If you don’t really know what they are now, you will come the end of the Olympics. We then got into the outside of the stadium, the place is shit. There is no presence to the ground. You go to Wembley and you see the stadium from a mile off and it looks smart. It has a bit of a wow to it. The Olympic Stadium looks like it’s not finished. It looks like it should have the outside built. What are they going to do, from what I’ve seen, they’re going to put some material draping down from the top to the bottom and some coloured lights to light it up a bit. Everything about the outside was disappointing. That shit monstrosity of a statue that some retarded **** has designed and the stadium which is apparently a bowl with no outside.
Anyway…. The first thing you get to is the food shops. They’re everywhere, offering a wide range of food and drink. Pan Asian, Fish and chips, hog roast, pie shop etc. If you want anything, you will be queuing up longer than an hour. The queues were an hour long and we was at a half full stadium at a test event. We didn’t go there, the people around us did, and they all came back saying the same thing. Overpriced, cold and shit quality! £8.50 for the smallest fish and chips you’ve ever seen. £4.50 for a ¾ pint of beer. £3 for what was smaller than your regular coffee, also cold. People were queuing for an hour to be told that their water heater wasn’t working properly so you have a warmish drink! Some were getting to the end of the queue to be told they’ve ran out of drinks. Some of the food stores had 9/10 of the menu sold out. It was awful.
In the stadium things changed. The place is lovely. The seats are all cushioned. The leg room is brilliant, the seat size is good. We were lower tier row 17. We were so close to the track it was unreal. The high jump was in front of us and the jumpers created a great atmosphere. Clapping to get the crowd going for them, it looked like something they weren’t too used to! Here is where the clap banners came into their own. Everyone clapping them to the claps of the jumpers worked, it was good.
Then we had the running events. And here is where you wanted to kill anyone with a clap banner. It seems like people were bored, frozen (it was very windy in the stadium!) and wanted to do something to warm up. Perfect, they all had a fucking clap banner, and 46000 clapped their clap banners to no tune, to nothing, it was just clap clap clap clap clap fucking clap. The athletes struggled to hear the start gun. They had to stop a couple of races at Set to tell the crowd to shut up. That didn’t stop them either. It was piss poor.
Then we came to the evening of “entertainment”. Well, the bill looked good. Jack Whitehall, Lee Mack, John Culshaw, Alexandra Burke and a fair few other celebrities, most of which I hadn’t heard of. So we were full of expectation, a couple of comedy sketches, probably 5 minutes each, and a song from a couple. No. We were wrong. It was a bunch of celebrities riding exercise bikes in the middle to win the crowd a chocolate lolly. This event was to open the stadium and mark 2012 hours until the Olympics. I felt mugged paying the £20 fee. Fortunately I only really wanted to see the stadium, as I said above, I will miss all the events during the Olympics there.
So anyone going to The Olympics. Prepare yourself for not getting and food or drink or getting into a toilet. Expect to have to strip naked to be searched. Get a touch of pneumonia from the wind generated everywhere. Probably get mugged by someone due to the amount of people in the Olympic Park. Struggle to get on any trains for a long time leaving. Queue for hours to get into any areas and be deafened by all the fucking clap banners.
http://www.clap-banner.com/clapbanner.html
I managed to get tickets to the Volleyball and Football and then stupidly booked my holiday for 2 weeks leaving the day the Olympic Stadium opens for its first events so will not be able to attend any events there.
Because of this I managed to get tickets to Saturdays event at The Olympic Stadium which wasn’t very well advertised or thought about too much! The event was 2012 Hours To Go. An evening of “entertainment” and athletics. Anyway, I’ll get onto that later! I also went to the Hockey tournament in the afternoon. Here’s my impression of the whole place.
Stratford station to the Olympic Park. Confusing signs pointing you all over the place, not too well worked, it is going to be chaos at that station during the Olympics! When we eventually got to the entrance we were greeted with big signs saying no drinks, aerosols, bombs, knives or cats allowed in the Olympic Park. We then queued up further to get to some tents where we had to remove all of our clothes and walk through a machine which beeped anyway whilst our bags and clothes were scanned. They then pulled me over saying I had water in my bag and it wasn’t allowed, which it was because we weren’t at The Olympics and at a test, after a discussion they allowed me to take it in! So far, piss poor, and this is with a very small crowd of people entering!
We showed the lady at the entrance our tickets to be allowed in! No scanning etc because you weren’t going in to an event. I believe come the Olympics anyone will be able to walk into the Olympic Park unless they issue tickets with tickets to allow entrance! The lady then pointed us to the Riverbank Arena to watch the hockey. Down there, turn right, walk for approx half an hour! We thought she was exaggerating, she wasn’t! It was some distance downhill then uphill. We walked past a few food outlets and toilets. It all looked nice. The river was decorated well, loads of benches, very open space, it looked a nice place. We eventually got to the Riverbank Arena where we had to queue for about another half an hour. There were probably 20 people infront of us in the queue. The ticket scanners didn’t really work. It was really poor. Come the Olympics they need to put barriers up to make people queue in lines with 2 people at the end scanning, because the way they were doing it didn’t work.
We eventually got in, was given a clap banner, walked up into the Riverbank Arena and it was nice, really nice. If you’ve been to Fulham away, it was like the away stand! Scaffoldy, jump a bit and the stand feels like it’s going to collapse. The only difference was the seats were decent sized, the leg room was good and there is no roof! There was an atmosphere in there, created by the clap banners. Again, if you don’t know what these are and have been to Fulham away, it’s what the home fans use to generate an atmosphere because they can’t do it without them.
If you are going to the hockey, a word of warning. One, the wind picks up in there and you will freeze, two, at half time they water the pitch, this is a six sprinkler system which spray from the corner flags and half way line. As we found out, a little wind plus these soaks the entire crowd. I would suggest at half time you get out of the stand and watch the kids playing hockey in the inflatable pitches outside!
At the end of the event we walked down to the Olympic Stadium for our evening of “Entertainment” and athletics. Again, around a 20min walk to the stadium. On the way we hit the toilets, and as there were around 10000 people around max it was going to be simple. The toilets were heaving, many doors broken where they’re budget, and the toilets are clear to the public outside the toilets. Really badly designed and I dread to think how bad they will be come the Olympics when they have probably closed to 150’000 in the Olympic Park before their events in all the places.
The shops in the Olympic Park were a makeshift shop where they had hot food served up one end, drinks and snacks in the middle then tills at the far end. Slow moving and overpriced. There weren’t many hot food places in the park, but it was a test event, I’m certain that will improve.
We then got to the queue for the Olympic Stadium. Queuing at a bridge which led us to the wrong end of the stadium due to no signs. The queue was probably 50 people wide, which funnelled in to 4 queues. Again, poor. They should have put barriers up to show where the queues should be. After another half an hour to 45mins of queuing we got through. Again, we were handed clap banners. If you don’t really know what they are now, you will come the end of the Olympics. We then got into the outside of the stadium, the place is shit. There is no presence to the ground. You go to Wembley and you see the stadium from a mile off and it looks smart. It has a bit of a wow to it. The Olympic Stadium looks like it’s not finished. It looks like it should have the outside built. What are they going to do, from what I’ve seen, they’re going to put some material draping down from the top to the bottom and some coloured lights to light it up a bit. Everything about the outside was disappointing. That shit monstrosity of a statue that some retarded **** has designed and the stadium which is apparently a bowl with no outside.
Anyway…. The first thing you get to is the food shops. They’re everywhere, offering a wide range of food and drink. Pan Asian, Fish and chips, hog roast, pie shop etc. If you want anything, you will be queuing up longer than an hour. The queues were an hour long and we was at a half full stadium at a test event. We didn’t go there, the people around us did, and they all came back saying the same thing. Overpriced, cold and shit quality! £8.50 for the smallest fish and chips you’ve ever seen. £4.50 for a ¾ pint of beer. £3 for what was smaller than your regular coffee, also cold. People were queuing for an hour to be told that their water heater wasn’t working properly so you have a warmish drink! Some were getting to the end of the queue to be told they’ve ran out of drinks. Some of the food stores had 9/10 of the menu sold out. It was awful.
In the stadium things changed. The place is lovely. The seats are all cushioned. The leg room is brilliant, the seat size is good. We were lower tier row 17. We were so close to the track it was unreal. The high jump was in front of us and the jumpers created a great atmosphere. Clapping to get the crowd going for them, it looked like something they weren’t too used to! Here is where the clap banners came into their own. Everyone clapping them to the claps of the jumpers worked, it was good.
Then we had the running events. And here is where you wanted to kill anyone with a clap banner. It seems like people were bored, frozen (it was very windy in the stadium!) and wanted to do something to warm up. Perfect, they all had a fucking clap banner, and 46000 clapped their clap banners to no tune, to nothing, it was just clap clap clap clap clap fucking clap. The athletes struggled to hear the start gun. They had to stop a couple of races at Set to tell the crowd to shut up. That didn’t stop them either. It was piss poor.
Then we came to the evening of “entertainment”. Well, the bill looked good. Jack Whitehall, Lee Mack, John Culshaw, Alexandra Burke and a fair few other celebrities, most of which I hadn’t heard of. So we were full of expectation, a couple of comedy sketches, probably 5 minutes each, and a song from a couple. No. We were wrong. It was a bunch of celebrities riding exercise bikes in the middle to win the crowd a chocolate lolly. This event was to open the stadium and mark 2012 hours until the Olympics. I felt mugged paying the £20 fee. Fortunately I only really wanted to see the stadium, as I said above, I will miss all the events during the Olympics there.
So anyone going to The Olympics. Prepare yourself for not getting and food or drink or getting into a toilet. Expect to have to strip naked to be searched. Get a touch of pneumonia from the wind generated everywhere. Probably get mugged by someone due to the amount of people in the Olympic Park. Struggle to get on any trains for a long time leaving. Queue for hours to get into any areas and be deafened by all the fucking clap banners.
http://www.clap-banner.com/clapbanner.html
