Twitter feed for spare Olympic tickets back online
After a run-in with Ticketmaster, a Twitter feed dedicated to helping people purchase tickets for the event has been reinstated.
A Twitter feed that alerted fans when spare Olympic tickets become available has been reinstated.
When the first events began, Olympic officials faced criticism over the number of seats remaining empty at events. One enthusiast, Adam Naisbitt, was so frustrated by the system that allowed games fans to buy up the spare tickets that he came up with his own alternative, the BBC reports.
Naisbitt set up a Twitter feed, @2012TicketAlert, which tweets information about spare tickets as soon as they are released. The feed leans on details gathered by his software from the official Olympics Web site, and has been used by hundreds of games fans to buy tickets.
However, the feed ran in difficulties on August 2 when the 2012 London Games' official ticket agency, Ticketmaster, updated its Web site. The move was an effort stop any ticket touts snapping up spare seats, and blocked external programs from accessing the site, according to the BBC.
The feed has since been reinstated. Ticketmaster told the BBC:
Once Adam Naisbitt approached Ticketmaster and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and we were able to establish that the activity was legitimate, we discussed with him the best way to re-enable access without compromising the performance of the website or the experience of consumers.
We have now unrestricted @2012TicketAlert and we will continue to remain focused on ensuring that the London 2012 website can sell as many tickets as possible to get even more sports fans to the Games.
The Twitter feed had almost 50,000 followers at the time of writing.