2012 London Games — Tickets Ordered Online Bring Long Waits in Line

That is what Andrew Kendall learned when he tried to buy tickets to see fencing and badminton at the 2012 Olympics. He had no choice but to shop online. But because he splits his time between here and Sydney, Australia, he did not want to have the tickets sent to either of his homes.

That left him no choice but to pick them up at two different places. He traveled to the Olympic site to get the tickets he bought in Britain and made his way across the city to Paddington, where he claimed another set of his tickets that his mother in Australia had bought.

When he arrived at the will-call center run by CoSport, a New Jersey-based company that distributes Olympic tickets for the United States, Australia, Canada, Norway and Sweden, he found a line about 100 deep outside.

After an hour, he emerged from a lobby at the City of Westminster College where about 10 CoSport employees at tables were checking identification and handing out envelopes with tickets, transit passes and cover letters. In all, he consumed most of a day to do something he said should have taken a few minutes.

“With all the technology available today, they could have built a kiosk,” Kendall said. “Instead, they built paper into it. It’s very old-fashioned.”

Kendall, though, considers himself lucky. On Monday, the first day CoSport’s will-call center here opened, some people waited five hours to get their tickets, according to a security guard who was handing out bottles of water and juice. More staff members were added Tuesday, reducing delays.

The long lines were the latest headache for CoSport. Last week, the company’s Web site warned that it was having difficulty handling all the calls from customers and that some people had not yet received their tickets because CoSport had not received them from the London organizers.

To avoid missing fans who might have left for England, CoSport stopped shipping tickets two weeks in advance. Those customers had the shipping fees returned but were also obligated to carve time out of their vacations to wait at the will-call center.

Some customers at the center Tuesday said they chose to pick up tickets in person to avoid what they thought were expensive shipping costs. Others bought their tickets at the last minute and did not have time for them to arrive in the mail. Yet others saw opportunity in the confusion.

Stan, a construction worker from Vancouver, British Columbia, who would not provide his last name, said he expected to buy tickets on the cheap from fans whose plans had gone awry, waiting outside the will-call center to strike deals with ticket-holders. He did this at the Olympics in Calgary, Alberta; Athens; Turin, Italy; and elsewhere, and while his strategy required more flexibility, it was far cheaper.

“I’ve never had a problem,” he said. “Sometimes, people have fights with their wives or break a leg, so you can always get a ticket. You’ve got to believe people will be desperate.”