I passed by a bank in Cape Town late this morning. Folks had been lining up for their last crack at tickets since dawn. But apparently the system at this particular branch was misbehaving, and some folks, though patient, remained ticketless, and were not amused.
It’s impossible to know the scope of South Africa’s ticket distribution problems today. This was seemingly an opportunity for folks to pick up a few random tickets for the odd game here and there. The ill ticketing of this tournament has been well documented. It’s most unfortunate said disconnects in the system remain.
I don’t know why at this stage it wasn’t possible to print “x” number of tickets for “y” games in advance and just flog ’em old school style from the local football stadiums such as in Cape Town, Greenpoint, Phillipi, Athlone, et cetera.
3 replies on “Got Any Spares?”
Check out the quick thinking sister covering her face with a magazine. She probably skipped work to get on this line.
Given the problems with ticket allocation (England get about 4500 for their opening game) and how the World Cup will be an opportuinity for all sorts of ‘social entrepreuners, skellems/scallies, bent corporate types and bent everything else, it will be interesting to see the extent of touting/scalping that goes on at the World Cup and to see who captures the market. I won’t be surpised to see some of the ‘professioanl’ crews that work at gigs and footie matches etc in the UK flying down to make a killing. It will also be interesting to see if they clash or lose out to local ‘crews’/individuals etc. I think this could prove to be one of the many fscinating sub-plots of the World Cup.
Excellent point, Peter. Touting somehow dropped from the narrative, yet we all know those characters will be out and about.
I think they will be more in effect for the 2nd Round, Quarter and Semi Finals, when the demand will be more pronounced.
It will also be interesting to see how the system copes when the foreign fans arrive en masse. I suspect there will be a few bottlenecks come June 9th, June 10th, June 11th, with all sorts of sob stories doing the rounds.