Olympic tickets on sale in 'second chance' phase

Some 40,000 tickets for volleyball sold out

People who obtained tickets for the 2012 Olympics in the initial first round ballot are getting an opportunity to buy seats for more events.

About 1.5 million tickets for football and 8,000 for freestyle wrestling are available.

Volleyball was also available but the 40,000 tickets sold out by Saturday.

Tickets are being sold on a first-come first-served basis in a process which finishes at 1800 BST on 17 July.

Some 700,000 people are eligible to buy tickets in this phase of the second round.

Another 150,000 people, who had been unsuccessful in the initial ballot, ordered tickets in an earlier second-round phase.

Meanwhile, an unofficial Facebook-based ticket sharing website has been set up.

Organisers of the <link> <caption>Ticket Collective website</caption> <altText>2012 London Olympics ticket website</altText> <url href="http://www.ticketcollective.com" platform="highweb"/> </link> say it is a free information site offering people unable to get tickets the chance to get some by letting them know which of their Facebook friends have spares.

It is not a ticket reselling or swapping site, however, but organisers say it may help to prevent touting.

Organiser Andrew Mobbs said: "With the recent demand for Olympic tickets being so high and the confusion around who got what tickets, we decided to see if we could do anything to make the process more transparent and sociable."

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) said it was illegal to sell tickets at more than face value and that an official website will be set up next year for people to re-sell tickets they no longer want.

Second-chance sale

In total more than 3.5 million Olympic tickets have now been sold, according to Locog.

The football tickets include men's and women's matches at Wembley Stadium, London; City of Coventry Stadium; Millennium Stadium, Cardiff; Hampden Park, Glasgow; St James' Park, Newcastle; and Old Trafford, Manchester.

Football makes up the bulk of the tickets available in the second-chance sale as the matches are played in large venues.

The volleyball tickets were for men's and women's sessions based at Earls Court, while the freestyle wrestling is taking place at Excel in east London.

Another major round of ticket sales will take place in early 2012.

A full list of available sessions and price categories <link> <caption>has been published on the official 2012 website</caption> <url href="http://media.ticketmaster.com/en-gb/img/sys/tournament/london2012/oly-complete-a.pdf" platform="highweb"/> </link> .

Some UK residents are finding tickets are still available from the national Olympic committees of other participating countries in the European Economic Area and the European Free Trade Association area.

Locog says people should be aware of bogus websites when searching for tickets from overseas sources and urged them to use the London 2012 <link> <caption>website checker</caption> <url href="http://www.london2012.com/about-this-website/ticketing-website-checker.php" platform="highweb"/> </link> to verify the sellers are genuine.

On Thursday, London 2012 chairman Lord Coe urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to return any unwanted tickets after "phenomenal and unprecedented" demand in the UK.

Special rail fares for London 2012 Olympic spectators have gone on sale.

Available from a <link> <caption>dedicated website</caption> <altText>Website to buy 2012 Olympic rail fares</altText> <url href="http://www.nationalrailgamestravel.co.uk/" platform="highweb"/> </link> , the tickets cover every rail station and every venue.

The 2012 Games Train Tickets are designed to be flexible and will allow spectators to change the time they return should an event be unexpectedly rescheduled, or if they wish to remain longer.

They can be used to travel to and from London and all other places hosting Olympic events and there will also be a Games travelcard for getting around London.

There will also be a special Olympic and Paralympic train timetable which will see the operation of thousands of extra trains.