18 Days in August, an Olympic Blog

There is a very paradox situation concerning tickets right now in Athens, first of all some facts:

• under Greek law it is illegal to re-sell tickets for any event for more than the face value
• Athens 2004 organisers up until the start of the Games enforced a total ban on reselling in any form and price of tickets for the Games
• there is a huge number of tickets for morning and less popular events that were unsold by the big foreign distributors and sponsors that ended up in the hands of tickets touts (how?)

So we now have foreign ticket touts (mainly Australian) praying on tourists outside the sports venues and also in Monastiraki Sq in Central Athens. Two them have even opened proper shops in Andrianou St. !!!

How do these people make a profit? Well they probably have bought the tickets at a discount from their initial owners and they just resell them at face value making up to 50% profit.

Another very popular method is to bundle tickets for soldout events (i.e. Greece vs US in basketball) with less popular morning qualifying events.

Offcourse I have been offered tickets for high demand soldout events like the Mens Tennis final for 20% premium. But this is not so common.

People going to events might have seen a couple of guys with a sign saying "Student needs tickets" they try to get the sympathy of the people by promoting their student identity. Well they are students in touting than anything else. I have spoken to them and they offer to buy tickets at ridiculously low prices (€10 for a €90 Athletics tickets), which they re-sell immediately to other people (they have actually told me this) for a significant profit.

On top of all these people they are real fans (like myself) who for some reason have some spare tickets for an event and want to sell them to true fans at face value. It is quite a harrowing experience because many people are very reserved (dervedly so) at people hawking tickets at them!