‘Your Ticket Sunday’: Australia’s Biggest ever Home Delivery for Olympic Tickets
This Sunday will see the start of the Your Ticket Sunday delivery program of Olympic Games tickets around Australia – one of the largest and most complex home delivery programs ever undertaken in this country.
‘There’s no doubt that this Sunday and the four that will follow it will be remarkable days,’ said Mr John Purdie-Smith, the ticket delivery manager for the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG).
‘Hundreds of thousands of people all over Australia, whether they live in cities, the outback or on islands off our coast, will get their Olympic Games tickets,’ he said.
Mr Purdie-Smith said one third of all the deliveries are scheduled for this Sunday.
‘The overwhelming majority of people expecting tickets will end up with them in their hands,’ he said. ‘Others, who simply can’t be at home, will find a red card under the door telling them when and how their tickets can be collected.’
Mr Purdie-Smith said only people who have a green ‘Your Ticket Sunday’ card should expect Olympic Games tickets to be delivered on one of these Sundays. This covered most people who have purchased tickets, but not all.
‘We have written to about 28,000 people who bought all or some of their tickets – or had their payment processed – after our cut-off date for deliveries,’ he said.
‘Although these people do not have green cards for these ticket orders, a percentage will no doubt expect a delivery due to the widespread publicity about `Your Ticket Sunday’. We’ve told them all they will receive all their tickets by September 3 and will be advised of their delivery arrangements soon.’Mr Purdie-Smith said that some other people may expect tickets and won’t receive them – or won’t receive all of them.
‘For example, from within the pool of people with the green `Your Ticket Sunday’ cards, 10,000 (so far) have notified us of their change of address too late, even though we extended the previously announced cut-off date for address changes from June 15 to July 15,’ he said.
‘Some people have provided only a city post office box or business address, and some homes will be difficult or impossible to find because of incomplete or inaccurate addresses.
‘Our message to anyone who, rightly or wrongly, expects a delivery but doesn’t receive one, is `Don’t worry. You will get your tickets. Your place at the Games is secure’.’
‘And, in all such cases, we are seeking to pre-empt the problems and communicate the solutions in advance by writing to people and through advertising and publicity.’
The chief executive of TNT, the courier company delivering the tickets, Mr James Wilson, said more than 2,000 staff will work across all states to deliver 144,000 packets of tickets to Australian households this Sunday.
‘It’s the largest exercise of its type ever undertaken across Australia,’ he said. ‘We’ve had to map out and create more than 5,000 unique delivery runs for the next five Sundays.’
Mr Wilson said across the five Sundays the program included more than 291,000 home deliveries in NSW, more than 53,000 in Victorian and Tasmania, more than 31,000 in Queensland, more than 13,900 in South Australia, more than 6,300 in Western Australia and more than 11,400 in the ACT and Northern Territory.
Your Ticket Sunday — Problems and Solutions
1. Issue: Many people have left it too late to tell us they have moved – we have been notified of 10,000 more in the last two weeks and a half weeks, and some who have moved would not have notified us at all.
Solution: We are writing progressively to the people who have contacted us at their new addresses to tell them that their address changes arrived too late. In most cases we expect to retain their tickets for collection. (If someone has improperly signed for the tickets, the tickets will be worthless because they will be replaced by a voucher which will take precedence at the Games.)
2. Issue: Some people have given us only a post office box address which we can’t deliver to, or a business address.
Solution: We have written twice to people with city box office addresses seeking a residential delivery address and now, a third time, telling them they will need to collect their tickets. We will try to deliver to business addresses but we expect difficulties on a Sunday. If we fail, they too will need to collect their tickets.
3. Issue: In a significant number of cases, address details are unclear – we know this because more than a thousand green Your Ticket Sunday cards have been returned so far – and we know that some addresses will be difficult to find.
Solution: This is inevitable in an operation of this scale and complexity. Mistakes may occur due to human error, either because inadequate information was provided by a customer or was recorded by an operator. If, for this reason, we can’t complete a delivery, the customer’s tickets will be secure and available for collection.
4. Issue: Some people purchased tickets (or had their payments on their tickets cleared) after the cut-off date for the Your Ticket Sunday deliveries.
Solution: They will not have received a green card relating to this order for tickets and therefore should not expect a delivery. And we are writing to all these people advising them of alternative delivery arrangements.
5. Issue: Because there have been a number of offers and order processes, some people may have some but not all of their tickets included in the Your Ticket Sunday delivery process.
Solution: These people will not have received green cards for all their orders and should not expect a delivery for any ticket order which does not have a green card to match. Again, we have written to those people advising delivery arrangements will be made for them at a later date.
6. Issue: No doubt, some people will anticipate deliveries even though their payments were not cleared.
Solution: We are writing to everyone whose payment failed.
7. Issue: Of course, we can’t discount the possibility of other human error on our part, or on that of our contracted courier, TNT.
Solution: People can contact us on 13 63 63 and we will investigate the problem and make alternative delivery arrangements.
Source: SOCOG