London 2012 Summer Games Tickets Hotels Tours: UK Students to Participate in Games Design

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Cringe. The Vancouver 2012 Closing
Ceremonies. "Guys & Dolls"

As Spyns dilligently prepares for its London 2012 tours, most potential clients are focused on London 2012 tickets but we at Spyns would prefer to talk fashion. Why are Olympics costumes and mascots so unbelievably bad? Hopefully the Brits can get it right but they've decided to let students get involved and this can lead to some "creative designs." While watching some of the ceremonies in Beijing, I thought a lot of the women looked like crosses between Japanese manga characters and pre-WWII Shanghai streetwalkers. As a Canadian, I have to face up to the total train wreck that was the closing ceremony costumes during the Whistler Olympics (see photo).


Royal College of Art (RCA) post graduates will have a hand in the design of the podium, costumes, flower holders and trays which will carry the medals and flowers during the Olympics and Paralympics. Around 250 trays and 6,000 flower holders will be used in the ceremonies. The students will work with industry professionals through to the 770-plus ceremonies that will take place at 29 different venues.


London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton described it as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" for the post graduates, while RCA rector Dr Paul Thompson said it was "a great honour" to be involved. Mr Deighton said: "We look forward to seeing their proposals, then teaming them up with industry professionals to realise their designs which will be seen by a global audience at the greatest show on earth." Next, the high street fashion chain which is London 2012's official clothing and homeware supplier, will work with the RCA students on their designs to produce all the costumes for the ceremonies.


These include the costumes for the escorts who accompany the athletes and the medal presenters plus the medal and flower bearers. Professor Wendy Dagworthy, the RCA's head of the School of Fashion and Textiles, said: "To have their work viewed by millions of people is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and our fashion students are very excited to be involved with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games." Christos Angelides (clearly a Scotsman), Next's group product director, said: "We are excited to be working with the Royal College of Art to produce the victory ceremony costumes and look forward to helping to make the victory ceremony attendants look great."

We at Spyns hope the students don't come up with a beefeater slash Sailor Moon concoction for the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games. Mark your calendars as tickets go on sale March 15, 2011.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets Hotels and Tours: Beware of the Fake Ticket Websites

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http://www.london2012-tours.com/
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London 2012 Tickets: demand will far
outstrip supply.

Spyns will be offering tickets as part of its London 2012 tours however, unlike most of the planet which is offering them now, we will take reservations for hotels and non-Olympic activities (like walking tours of London for example) with tickets added to our tours after purchased via a licensed re-seller. Some have gotten a bit more creative according to London police.

Taking advantage of overwhelming demand for London 2012 tickets, illegal websites purporting to be "licensed ticket re-sellers" are cropping up on the internet. A battle is brewing in cyberspace. During my recent swing through London a few weeks ago, London 2012 organisers seemed to be in "what the f*ck are we doing mode" as the drop dead March 15 ticket sale date looms large on the calendar. In several meetings, I heard that tour operators like us could purchase tickets, then we couldn't, then we had to provide individual client's names, then we didn't, then we had to register for the ballot, then we didn't.

A few things are certain:

• Millions of tickets will go on sale in the spring
• The ticketing system is clearly a work in progress
• Like every previous Olympic Games, tickets will be bought and sold
• 50% of the tickets will go to Olympic insiders or VIPs (20% will surely be fartcatchers for IOC president Jacques Rogge) 
• Like every previous Olympic Games, organisers will pretend that there won't be a black market
• Scalpers will eventually acquire and re-sell tickets

In an interesting twist, fake websites purporting to sell London 2012 tickets are being targeted by a specialist police unit. Operation Podium has been set up to combat fraud and organised crime around the Olympic Games. The team is running 16 current operations and made 37 arrests in the past six months. Detective Chief Inspector Nick Downing said his top priority was to combat ticket fraud, especially bogus websites.

He said: "Someone may travel from a distant part of the UK, coming to London thinking that they have tickets for the 100m final for which they have paid thousands of pounds, only to find they have no accommodation, no ticket and no experience of a lifetime. "I don't want London to be associated with that."


Police will be on the lookout for fraudulent and touting websites when the 6.6 million tickets available to the public for the Olympic and Paralympic Games go on sale on 15 March this year. Mr Downing said officers had learned lessons by monitoring the chaos around the release of Take That tickets last October. Prior to the band's tickets going on sale, five or six unlicensed websites were operating, he said, but this jumped to "hundreds" the day the tickets were released. The situation was exacerbated by authorised sellers' sites crashing, leaving desperate fans more vulnerable to handing over their card details to touts and fraudsters.

London 2012 organisers hope to avoid a similar buying frenzy by making the application process open for six weeks, after which the tickets will be allocated by ballot. Police are working with the organising committee to develop a legitimate way for people to resell and swap tickets without resorting to touts. Unlike other sporting events and concerts, unlicensed reselling of Olympic tickets is illegal under Section 31 of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006, meaning officers can arrest touts. However, Mr Downing said the 36-strong Operation Podium team was already compiling a list of known ticket touts across the UK and would use a range of legal tools including ASBOs and seizing assets to "create a hostile environment" in which they would not wish to operate.


Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison, the National Olympic Security Co-ordinator, said there were no guarantees that London 2012 would be a tout-free zone but "we will put the fear on them using every possible legislation that we can". This reminds me of comedian Robin Williams take on the London Police who at the time didn't carry sidearms. "Stop!" said Williams imitating a police constable, "Or I'll say 'Stop' again!"

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

Lond 2012 Tickets Tours Hotels: Pubs Enjoy Later "Last Call" for London 2012

"Later pub closures,
later pub closures!"

http://www.london-tours-2012.com/
http://www.london2012-tours.com/
http://www.london-olympiad.com/


As Spyns prepares for its London 2012 Olympics tours, potential clients will see a nice benefit to London's Summer Games: more beer!

London's Olympics could be the catalyst for a three-month long party after it emerged that pubs, clubs and restaurants are set to be allowed extended opening hours during the summer of 2012. It's not exactly hard to get a late drink in town now, but for the Olympic season, Westminster Council – which covers much of the West End – is ready for many more establishments to run a late bar.

I was enjoying dinner in the Westminster district and experienced the bizarre British ritual of, "Last call!" and then 30 seconds later, "Get the f*ck out!" so longer pub hours are a welcome development. "We will need to strike an appropriate balance between the needs of the Games themselves; helping Westminster businesses to maximise the opportunity which the Olympics present; and supporting the wider Westminster residential and business communities to get the best out of the Games," said Angela Harvey, a Westminster Councillor. Note to Angie: please fire the pushy East Indian security guard who kept repeating, "Please exit" at the Concrete Bar on the Thames while we gulped down pints purchased just minutes before getting booted from the pub.

To cope with the extra visitor numbers, the council has slapped a ban on staff taking holiday during the summer months of 2012. On top of that, building work will be banned in central London between June and August and Transport for London has agreed to run more buses and possibly the Tube into the early hours. Officially, that's to help spectators get back from the Games' venues, but late-hours transport will also act as a green light to revellers.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets Tours Hotels: London Ambassadors Programme in Full Swing

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"For Queen and Country!"

British pluck has never been more abundantly displayed than with the popular "London Ambassadors" program. Set up by London Mayor (pictured here) Boris Johnson (or "BJ" to his crew), volunteers must make a 6-day committment to help welcome and direct the many visitors to London. Here is a cute simulation from the Ambassadors's website under the heading "Duties":

American gentleman: That's it. We're completely lost. And the 200m heats start in one hour.


American lady: I told you to bring the map! You never listen to me.


London Ambassador: Hi there. Do you guys need any help?

American lady: We need to get to Stratford in one hour.

American gentleman: Where's the nearest subway station?

London Ambassador: No problem. The quickest way is to go to Green Park station which is only 5 minutes away. You'll need to catch a Jubilee Line train, which will go all the way to the Stadium.


American gentleman: Phew! Thanks for the tip.

The above reminds me of those "Don't do drugs" movies from highschool...cute but utterly divorced from reality. Let's hope the "American Couple" don't use much profanity or pack one of the many firearms currently available roadside in the US. I'd prefer a simulation with a drunk French couple, both radical lesbians, with adopted Senegalese baby in pram. Simulate that Boris! On a more serious note, almost 34,000 people have registered their interest in becoming  London Ambassadors for the 2012 Olympic Games. The Mayor of London's office will trim the list of applicants to 8,000 after interviewing a shortlist of applicants between April and July this year. The ambassadors will be welcome guides during the Olympics, answering visitors' questions and showing them the way to outdoor screens broadcasting the games across central London. London Mayor Boris Johnson said Monday that "it should come as no surprise that so many Londoners want the honor of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to represent their great city to our visitors in 2012."

While we've made light of the simulation, we at Spyns 2012 London Olympics Tours applaud the initiative. It makes up for Boris's "whiff whaff" speech in Beijing back in 2008! We've even come up with a slogan:

"London 2012, putting the 'Ass' back in 'Ambassador'". Catchy?

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets Tours Hotels: Olympic Stadium Fight Getting Nasty

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Artist's rendering of the completed
London 2012 Olympic stadium.

Who says the English lack passion? Spyns 2012 London Olympics clients are eagerly awaiting summer games ticket sales in March. As London 2012 organisers work dilligently to complete the Olympic Village, test computer systems, and prepare to sell roughly 8 million tickets, the battle over the Olympic stadium is turning rather nasty. 


Chairman of the 2012 London Olympics Lord Coe has slammed Tottenham's plans to occupy the Olympic Stadium in east London following the Games. Spurs are currently battling West Ham for the right to take control of the stadium and if successful, plan to knock the stadium down and replace it with one that they say is more suitable for hosting football. They do, however, state that they would redevelop the current athletics facilities at Crystal Palace.


However, Coe, who led the bid in 2005, isn't convinced and claims that Spurs' plans would undermine the Games' legacy. "It’s really serious we deliver on what we said we were going to deliver, unless we are prepared to trash our international reputation. "If we don’t, it would be difficult to be taken seriously in the corridors of world sport. I remember delivering a vision about a generation of young people being inspired to take up Olympic sports. I’m prepared to revisit my words that day but I genuinely don’t recall a whole heap about bulldozing down a publicly-funded facility, replacing it with a Premiership football club and inspiring a generation of Tottenham season-ticket holders.


"I find it inconceivable grandparents will take children back to a Premiership football ground and say somewhere among this lies dormant the memories of Jessica Ennis or Usain Bolt reaching the heights of sport. It just does not smell right." Meanwhile, West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady has also furthered the debate, questioning Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp's impassioned call for Spurs' plans to go ahead. She said: "Harry has got his own agenda, no doubt given to him by his board to deliver. When he was asked before for his view of Tottenham moving to the Olympic Stadium, he said, 'That's West Ham territory, isn't it?' It's amazing what pressure can be put on you to change your opinion.


"Harry seems to have been briefed that we are simply moving our goalposts there. That is not true. This is being built by Westfield, an outstanding company, and one of the ideas is to move seats closer behind the goal. I'd be a lot more worried about Spurs filling their stadium because of all the demonstrations I have seen from the Tottenham supporters who are against moving. But this is much bigger than Harry's point of view. He is bordering on hysteria."

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets Tours and Hotels: Multilingual Shakespeare On Offer as Part of London 2012

Now Playing: Romeo & Juliet in Jive

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http://www.london2012-tours.com/
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Mad dogs and Englishmen! As Spyns' clients count down to the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London (and London 2012 tickets in March), the cultural events surrounding the London Olympics are starting to gain momentum.

Each of William Shakespeare's 38 plays will be performed in a different language, including Arabic, Spanish and Urdu, during a theatre season in Britain to mark the London 2012 Olympic Games. Shakespeare's Globe theatre in the British capital said Thursday it would host the special season over six weeks, beginning next year on April 23, the playwright's birthday.


Shows will included "The Taming of the Shrew" in Urdu, starring Pakistani television star Nadia Jamil as Katherine, and "King Lear" in Australian Aboriginal languages. Other performances include "Julius Caesar" in Italian, "Troilus and Cressida" in Maori, "The Tempest" in Arabic and "Love's Labour's Lost" in British sign language. "The Globe will create an international Shakespeare community in the heart of London, as a prelude to the internationalism which will fill the capital later in the year with the Olympics," said the Globe's artistic director Dominic Dromgoole.

The project is part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad which was set up in 2008 to celebrate the Olympics. The Globe is a reconstruction of a theatre where many of Shakespeare's plays were performed before it burnt down in 1613. Given the catfight regarding the London 2012 stadium, Spyns wouldn't be surprised if the mega-million pound stadium 'did a 1613.'

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets Hotels and Tours: Cyber Attacks!

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http://www.london2012-tours.com/
http://www.london-olympiad.com/

"I say, how does one get
London 2012 tickets?"

Hot on the heels of my pre-trip work in London last week, I'm compelled to write that the Brits are doing one hell of a job with the London 2012 preparations. Yes London has creaky infrastructure (like the tube), the streets are crowded, and the London 2012 Olympic village is in the English equivalent of civil war Beirut but I was overwhelmed as the kindness, decency, and work ethic of the English.


It wasn't all lemondrops and rainbows in London last week. My first shock was that the London Organising Committee has booked every hotel room in the city for Olympic VIPs. This will make it very hard for ordinary people to see the summer games. My second shock was how disorganized London 2012 ticketing will be. During a number of meetings, it was abundantly clear that no one really understands what the hell is going to happen with ticketing. But I have every confidence the good-natured and hard-working Brits will figure it out in time for tickets to go on sale next March. While London 2012 ticketing looks to be a clusterf*ck, organisers are certainly getting their virtual game sorted out.


Gerry Pennell, chief information officer of London 2012, said previous Olympic Games had been subject to cyber attacks and there was no reason to doubt that malicious individuals or networks would target London to try to bring down the Games or attack the results system or website. “We will get cyber attacks, for sure,” said Pennell, who has set up a specialist team dedicated to countering outside threats. “We are working very closely with our partners and also with Government to make sure we have the right level of defences against the predictable cyber attacks. Clearly, you can never say never, but I think we’re doing everything we need to do to minimise the chances of that causing us a problem.”


Pennell was speaking at Wednesday’s launch of the ‘Technology Lab’ – a partnership between London 2012 and Olympic information technology provider Atos Origin that will see the Games IT systems subjected to 200,000 hours of simulation and testing before they go live Atos Origin will also work with London organisers on cyber defences, having provided the IT for every Olympic Games since Salt Lake City in 2002.




Patrick Adiba, chief executive of Atos Origin for the Olympics, said one of the key defences was sophisticated monitoring of any anomalies on the network. “In Beijing we had about 14 million what we call ‘events’ per day,” he said. “These were not attacks but just events, things such as someone entering the wrong password three times. We filtered them down to about 400 relevant events that could have been an issue and may have impacted on the Games.”


Pennell said he was confident that the exhaustive testing and attention to detail would avoid many of the technological problems that afflicted the Commonwealth Games in Delhi last October. “Delhi would be a good example of why we’re doing this,” said. “You could argue that the big difference between Delhi and here is the amount of investment we’re putting in to the integration and testing process.”

Spyns London 2012 tours says, "Take some of that money and effort and get the bloody maps to work properly on the London 2012 website!"

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets Hotels and Tours: Cue the Thames Cable Car

"I say good man, where the devil is the Olympic Stadium?"

http://www.london-tours-2012.com
http://www.london2012-tours.com
http://www.london-olympiad.com/

I was in London last week on an Olympic pre-trip swing and can safely say London will have a transportation issue come July 2012. But the city seems to have found a solution: a ridiculously expensive cable car!

A wildly expensive £25 million (US$34 million) cable car scheme is set to get planning permission tomorrow, and will be ready in time for the 2012 Olympics. The scheme will be privately funded and Transport for London (TfL) are confident the funds would be found when they vote on the plans. John East, Newham Council's divisional director of planning says: ''All the discussions I have had with Tfl suggest they will be able to secure that private funding, or sponsorship to enable the cable car to happen.' 'Bearing in mind where we are with public finances and the scrutiny that public bodies are under, why would TfL come this far if they weren’t sure?''

Perhaps Tfl could invest the millions of pounds into keeping the tube trains running on time when millions of people test London's creaky transport system to its limits! The cars - a first for a UK city - will cross the Thames connecting the O2 arena and ExCel centre, between the Greenwich Peninsula and Royal Docks. The venues will both be used in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. The scheme is part of the ongoing regeneration of East London and will be significant for improving connections to the site. TfL believes that construction jobs will be found competitively allowing the scheme to be produced quickly and cheaply.

Taking just five minutes to do the crossing, London Mayor, Boris Johnson told the Daily Mail: ''A cable car spanning the majestic Thames would not only provide a unique and pioneering addition to London’s skyline, but also offer a serene and joyful journey across the river." He added: "Passengers would be able to drink in the truly spectacular views of the Olympic Park and iconic London landmarks whilst shaving valuable minutes from their travelling time. It would also provide a much needed enhancement of cross river options to the east of the city.”



The cable cars will match the capacity of 50 buses per hour, carrying up to 2,500 passengers in each direction arriving every 30 seconds, says London Transport Commissioner, Peter Hendy. Now we need only build the damn thing...after the arena, Olympic park, hotels, roads....tea time!

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets Hotels and Tours: London 2012 Tickets On Sale Mid-March

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http://www.london2012-tours.com/
http://www.london-olympiad.com

In what we at Spyns are predicting to be a right British clusterf*ck, millions of tickets for the London 2012 Olympics will go on sale starting Tuesday, March 15, 2011. London Olympic organisers believe this will proceed seamlessly whereas former Olympic games suggest otherwise. While Spyns applauds London 2012's goal of making these fair and equitable games, it would be naive to deny that in a country with a betting hall on every street corner that an enourmous black market won't spring up within 1 hour of the first ticket sales. But let's remain in the honeymoon stage and detail how London 2012 tickets will go on sale.

Lord Sebastian Coe, the London 2012 chairman, has announced that the process for allocating tickets for the London 2012 Olympic Games will begin on Tuesday 15th March this year. With 26 sports, featuring 38 disciplines, taking place between 27th July and 12th August, competition is sure to be high as the public vie for a chance to see some of the world’s best athletes take part in the 30th edition of the modern Olympics.


There will be over six million tickets available, with prices starting at £20 ($25-$30), for those wishing to attend the games. The application process will be open from 15th March through to 26th April, in which time those hoping to attend must apply for the events they wish to view. Anyone who truly believes they'll spend just £20 ($25-$30) to watch the bastketball finals have likely purchased 'a substantial interest' in London Bridge. According to Olympic organisers, tickets will be allocated to those who have applied within the six week time period. If events are oversubscribed then tickets will be allocated via a ballot system. There will also be a number of free events throughout the games as the Triathlon, Road Cycling, and Marathon will all take place on the streets of London. Furthermore, those not able to attend London itself will not be without the opportunity to taste the magic of the Olympics. Canoeing will take place at Dorney Lake in Buckinghamshire and in Lee Valley White Water Centre in Hertfordshire; mountain biking will be hosted by Hadleigh Farm in Essex; while sailing will be hosted in Weymouth. Spyns asks: how the hell are you supposed to watch sailing as a competitive sports anyway?

The Olympic Games football (soccer for our North American readers) tournament will also be hosted by a number of arenas outside of the capital. As well as Wembley Stadium, football will also be played at the Ricoh Arena of Coventry City, Manchester United’s Old Trafford, St James’ Park of Newcastle United. Furthermore, the national stadiums of both Wales and Scotland will get in on the action as the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and Hampden Park in Glasgow will also be used for the football at the Olympics. This will give everyone the opportunity to buy some ridiculously overpriced rail tickets as I did while taking the Gatwick Express. Anyone who believes privatising the rail system was a good idea had obviously never enjoyed the 30-minute train ride from London's Gatwick Airport to Victoria Station for roughly £27.50 (approx $40). Given these prices, I was expecting a smallish piece from the royal jewel collection but only received free attitude from the Eastern European conductor. Pity!

Lord Coe, himself a double Olympic gold medallist, has described the London 2012 Olympics as “the greatest show on earth” and a “once in a life time opportunity,” and it is likely that the organisers will have a tough time on their hands as the majority of the events, if not all of them, are likely to be highly sought after.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets Hotels and Tours: Your Guide to London 2012 Tickets

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http://www.london-olympiad.com/

London 2012 Organisers, "It's all under control."

As Spyns clients eagerly await their 2012 London Olympics tours, the London Summer Games organising committee is trying to bring order to chaos through "transparent ticketing". Funny how every Olympic organising committee pledges a fair and equitable games. Unfortunately year after year getting ticketing becomes an absolute feeding frenzy. Spyns offers London 2012 summer games tours with hotel, tickets, and sightseeing.


Back in the summer of 2005, when it was announced London had won the right to host the Olympic games, 2012 seemed like half a lifetime away. But the world's greatest sporting event will be here in 18 months' time – and tickets go on sale in March, so it's not too soon to start giving it some thought. If you're keen to go to several events, you will need two things: a Visa card and deep pockets. The official advice is that to maximise your chances of getting tickets, you will need to apply for lots of things. But be warned: if you get everything you apply for, you are committed to buying all those tickets – which could mean a bill of hundreds of pounds. So families on a budget will need to think carefully.

Forget Take That, Wimbledon and Glastonbury – London 2012 is set to trigger a ticket frenzy that will dwarf all of those. Around 8.8m tickets will be available, plus another 2m for the Paralympic Games. So far, well over 1.9 million people have registered an interest in buying them. When ticket prices were announced in October, Olympics minister Hugh Robertson pledged that "people of all ages and budgets will have the chance to attend". But some voiced doubts after it emerged that only 2.5m of the tickets would cost £20 ($31) or less, with a top-price seat at the men's 100m final or one of the swimming finals set to cost £725 ($1125) and £450 ($700) respectively. Here, we tell you all you need to know (based on what we know so far) about getting those must-have pieces of paper.


You will be able to apply for tickets from March 2011. About 75% of the 8.8m total will go on sale to the public. Sign up to receive information by logging on to the 2012 tickets website. Full-price tickets start at £20 ($30) for all sports, though what you pay will vary depending on the event and where you sit/stand. You can view the detailed pricing information on the 2012 website. Prices will be per session, the length of which will vary from sport to sport. There will be 649 sessions across 26 sports. Good news if you have kids: more than 200 of the sessions will allow anyone 16 or under at the start of the games to "pay their age" for the ticket – and anyone over 60 pays £16 ($25).

Unlike Take That shows or other "hot" events, this isn't going to be first come, first served, so there is nothing to be gained from submitting your application on the first day, organisers say. The application window will be open for a set time, after which all applications will be considered equally, they add: "With so many sports, venues and days to consider, we recommend you take your time and discuss your plans with family and friends." For sessions where demand exceeds supply, there will be a ballot. "To increase your chances of being successful, we recommend you apply for more than one or two sessions and for a range of sports," says the Olympics ticketing team. Early indications are that the sports that will see the highest demand include swimming, gymnastics, diving, tennis and cycling.


It's only after the tickets have been allocated and payment taken that you will find out whether you have got what you applied for. "If you are successful in all your session applications, you are committed to buying all the tickets," say the organisers. It will be illegal to sell tickets for a profit, unless you are an authorised partner, such as Thomas Cook, which will be offering hotel and ticket packages to international travellers. So if you put tickets up on, say, eBay, you will be committing an offence. However, London 2012 is developing an online exchange through which people can resell them. I'm a bit skeptical. Seeing as how the London 2012 website can't manage a functioning map of the Olympic Village, I doubt they'll have a London 2012 version of eBay running in just a few short months.

Back to the tickets: the name of the buyer will be printed on the ticket, but it's unlikely that ID will be required when presenting them. A London 2012 spokesman says: "The person buying the ticket will have their name on the ticket and therefore be responsible for them. If you can't make it and pass it on to someone else, then we will be sensible about it, but our default position is that the buyer is responsible." Aren't the British wonderful? Sadly, most of the planet isn't "sensible" and this will mean bumper business for Spyns London 2012 package tours.


Travel and accommodation costs may put off lots of Brits from outside the capital. Non-London options are sailing, which is being held off the coast of Weymouth and Portland Harbour in Dorset; rowing, which will be at Eton Dorney near Windsor Castle, 40km west of London; and football, which will be held at the City of Coventry Stadium, Hampden Park in Glasgow, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Old Trafford in Manchester and St James' Park in Newcastle. Mountain biking will take place in Hadleigh Farm, between Basildon and Southend in Essex.

We accept Visa, Visa, and Visa cards. Welcome to the London 2012 monopoly. You will be able to apply online at the 2012 website or via forms that will be available from shops. A Visa card (credit, debit or prepaid) will be the only payment method accepted for online applications – in recognition, organisers say, of the company's support for the games. However, cheques and postal orders will also be accepted for paper applications. If you've only got a MasterCard or Amex, you should probably think about taking out one of the numerous Visa prepaid cards available.

I love England, London, and the Brits in general but this is going to be a complete fiasco. In a world of point-click commerce, market forces will eventually prevail despite organizer's admirable attempts to sell tickets to the real people.  A student with a $20 ticket to the opening ceremony will likely give into the temptation to make a 1000% profit by re-selling it. The Sydney and Beijing games were well orgaised but demand for tickets led to a huge black market and the same will inevitably happen in London.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets and Tours: David Beckham Olympic Gold for London Organising Committee

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Bond, James Bond

Ain't it strange to be over the hill at 37? As Spyns London 2012 tour clients look at flights and purchase flags for their Summer Olympic Games packages, an older, wiser David Beckham (37) looks longingly at Blighty's shores. Apparently, the world's most famous footballer could star at the London 2012 Olympics by playing or coaching the Great Britain football team. According to organising committee chairman Sebastian Coe, Beckham's is at the top of the list. Although football is played as an Under-23 (yikes) tournamenent at the Olympics, the rules allow for three over-age players and Coe believes Beckham or players like Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard should feature because their global profile would attract more interest in the event.

Coe told BBC Radio Five: "We are not going to have a big international football tournament on domestic soil for some time so we want to use it to inspire a generation of young players. "It is an under-23 tournament but you are allowed to play three over-age players and just picking out names that could be Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard towards the end of their career or David Beckham -- or even David Beckham as a coach, though I have gone way beyond my brief saying that!" Coe has previously spoken to Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson about whether he would be interested in coaching the side.

The English Football Association will likely have the final decision on who manages and plays for Britain, but Coe hopes stars like Ferguson and Beckham will be involved. He added: "It is not for me to decide, it is for the FA and the British Olympic Association."

Beckham's wife Victoria (aka "Posh Spice") has apparently refused a reunion with the Spice Girls for the London 2012 Olympics - despite interest from the four other seasonings for a one-off catch-up. But according to a source close to the Beckhams, ‘she's not a spoilsport but she doesn't feel she's a good enough performer to go back there again all these years on'. Oh well. Provided Heather Small is under lock and key on a remote island north of Scotland and no-one is telling me to search for the hero inside myself then a Spice-less Olympics will be more than palatable.

Spyns female clients will certainly be swooning with anticipation.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Summer Games Tickets Tours Hotels: Schedule for London 2012 Ticket Sales

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A priceless commodity

Tickets have long been the achilles heel of most summer Olympic Games. The Olympic playbook is always the same: save half of the tickets for Olympic Organising Committee members, corporate sponsors, and VIPs. The lowly single ticket holder often has to go without. Ticket problems plagued Atlanta, Sydney, and the Beijing games. Will the London 2012 summer games fare any better? Spyns London Summer Games clients wonder.

From tickets going on sale in March to the final lick of paint being administered to the Olympic Park, 2011 represents a key year in engaging the British public in a home Olympiad. What follows are some key days in the London 2012 ticketing calendar.

JANUARY
London 2012 organising committee will publish dates of Olympics and Paralympics tickets going on sale. Water polo, beach volleyball and handball are expected to find out their fate for 2012 inclusion from the British Olympic Association. Volleyball was granted an automatic spot last month, so it remains to be seen whether the BOA will take ahard line approach to the remaining sports. The full schedule of test events are also due to be announced in the first quarter of 2011 too.


FEBRUARY
The Olympic PR machine will crank up a few gears when full details of all the 650 separate sessions for the 26 Olympic sports are published. It will give the British public time to take in and plan when the stars are likely to be competing.


MARCH
Likely to be around March 15 – 500 days to go until the start of the Games – some 6.6 million tickets for all the Olympics sports will go on sale. A giant clock counting down the hours until the start will also be installed in Trafalgar Square. Around 2m people have already registered for tickets in preparation for the launch. Ticket prices will vary according to the demand for the sport and will range from £20 ($30) to £2012 ($3000) – the most expensive ticket at the opening ceremony. Ticket sales will not be a bun fight. It will be in ballot form, the idea being that families can plan their Olympic experience with preferences for sessions. The IOC co-ordination commission will also visit London to inspect preparations. They were last in town in December.

APRIL
London will be abuzz in the first week of the month when hundreds of chief execs and sponsors attend Sportaccord 2011, the annual convention which gels sport and business. Themed ‘Why Sport Matters’, the Park Plaza Hotel in Westminster will feature over 100 federations from 60 nations, including Sepp Blatter and Martin Sorrell. The International Olympic Committee’s executive board will also meet in the capital for the first time since the city was awarded the 2012 Games.

MAY/JUNE
Details on the London 2012 torch relay are expected to be announced. The relay will involve 8,000 runners, more than half of whom will be aged 24 or under, and will go to within an hour’s travel of 95 per cent of the population of the British isles.

JULY
Mark your cards for July 27 when celebrations will take place for exactly one year to go to the Olympics.


AUGUST
A month for fine-tuning. Test events for beach volleyball in Horse Guard’s Parade, sailing in Weymouth, open water on the Serpentine and rowing on Dorney Lake will all take place. Badminton’s World Championships at Wembley Arena will also act as a Locog test event. Meanwhile, events marking one year to go to the opening of the Paralympics will take place on Aug 29.


SEPTEMBER
Tickets for the Paralympics are expected to go on sale.

OCTOBER
The IOC co-ordination commission will make their second visit of the year to London to inspect preparations.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER
The main venues including the Olympic Stadium, Aquatics Centre and Velodrome and the Olympic Park are due to be completed by this time and handed over to Locog to be fitted out for the Games. The main press centre is also likely to be finished.

Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.

London 2012 Olympics Tickets and Tours: Former White House Drug Czar Says Test Early to Prevent Doping

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Spyns clients agree the London 2012 games should remain drug-free. Former White House drug czar Robert Weiner believes testing for the London summer games should start early and frequently. Spyns is an active travel company offering trip packages to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Weiner was spokesman for the White House National Drug Policy Office and directed WADA media outreach at the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002 and White House Olympics drug media at Sydney 2000. He assisted in creation of WADA and USADA. The 2002 Salt Lake City Games, the first Winter Games after formation of the World Anti-Doping Agency in 1999, was dramatically impacted by drug testing and the busts that occurred. To stop athletes from doping during the London Games in 2012, start the drug testing now. Testing the athletes before the Games, and not just on-site during the Games, is the lesson of the Salt Lake City Olympics.


With the 2012 summer Olympics less than two years away, it's time to prepare for an onslaught of illegal drug use during the Games. A review of the Salt Lake Games' drug history teaches an important lesson -- the world drug-testing apparatus must be fully prepared to keep the Games clean. Alain Baxter, an alpine skier who represented the United Kingdom, lost his bronze medal after testing positive for methamphetamine. Russia's Larisa Lazutina and Olga Danilova and Spain's Johann Mühlegg, all cross-country skiers, were found using the drug Darbepoetin and stripped of their medals. Belarusian ice hockey player Vasily Pankov was disqualified after testing positive for the steroid nandrolone. The Belarusian ice hockey doctor, Evgeni Lositski, was banned.


In a final embarrassment, following the Games, blood transfusion equipment was found in the rooms where the Austrian ski team stayed. Team officials claimed the equipment was to prevent the flu, and the world's media collectively laughed. The real question is how many cheating athletes were not caught before the Games, because most cheating occurs in training, not the competition itself. Olympic athletes also bypass drug disqualifications with waivers, called therapeutic use exemptions, or TUEs, or come at the last minute to international events to avoid early testing.


A therapeutic-use exemption allows an athlete to use a banned substance for treatment of an illness if a doctor "prescribes" it and if Olympic officials agree it's necessary for health. TUEs are legitimate for illnesses like cancer, but former World Anti-Doping Chair Dick Pound has sarcastically said that it's amazing the world's fittest athletes -- Olympians -- have six times the colds of the rest of humanity. TUEs are a huge loophole. Celebrity athletes have been caught up in recent drug scandals. Five-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones -- who had been considered the best female sprinter ever -- finally admitted to steroid use leading up to the Sydney Games.


Recent busts are coming fast and furious. In July 2009, five Beijing Olympians were banned and lost medals after two tests confirmed use of the blood-boosting drug Cera, including the 1,500-meter track champion. Thirty athletes were banned from the Vancouver Olympics and 70 from the Beijing Games. In January 2010, a Russian skier was dropped from the Olympic team after she tested positive for EPO. In March, a Polish skier's EPO use was confirmed and she was suspended. A Chinese judo performer tested positive for the muscle-building drug Clenbuterol in May, as did a Chinese swimmer and a British hurdler.

On Oct. 18, American sprinter LaShawn Merritt was banned from competing for 21 months. A medalist at Beijing and Berlin, he tested positive for DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), which he blames on over-the-counter Extenze. Enlarging body parts notwithstanding, Merritt is now slated to miss the London Olympics.Track and field and the Olympics are models -- they expel athletes who drug cheat, unlike major professional sports such as football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, which find excuses to let them compete after a wrist slap or a short token hiatus. Even a master sprinter over 35 competing only for honor, and not for the massive funding Olympic champions receive, gets banned. Val Barnwell, 52, was busted after testing positive for testosterone at the World Master Championships in 2009 in Italy and was barred when he showed up to race at the 2010 World Masters Indoors in Canada this March.

The athletes competing in London 2012 will be the best in the world. They should be the ones who put in the years of training and effort, not the competitors who use the most drugs.


Spyns is an active travel company based in Whistler, BC (Canada). For more information about Spyns and our package tours to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, including London Olympics hotels, London 2012 tickets, and summer games VIP access, please visit our websites http://www.london-olympiad.com/ http://www.london2012-tours.com/ and http://www.london-tours-2012.com/ or call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.