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2004 Olympic Games and Yachting in Greece
Everybody knows that the Olympic Games are due to be held in Athens in 2004. Apart from the accepted consequences, positive and negative, for the city of Athens and Greece in general this sporting extravaganza will seriously affect the yachting fraternity from mid-July to mid-September.
Two major crises will afflict the greater Athens area i.e. transportation and accommodation. I will refer to certain aspects of transportation later but the accommodation problem will directly affect yachtsmen. How, you might ask ? I will tell you.
The Greek government is trying many ways to obviate the shortage of about 40,000 rooms. Athenians are being asked to offer rooms to visitors in their own homes and 11 cruise ships are being chartered and moored in Piraeus harbour for the duration of the Games. Not wishing to be left out of this possible bonanza, yacht owners will be offering their yachts as floating hotels in all the marinas along the Athens coastline, particularly Marina Alimos. Nor will this be restricted to Athenian yacht owners, as owners from all over Greece will be climbing on the bandwagon and will be moving their yachts into the Athens area for the Games. Many yachts are already booked to regular charterers and thus the prices for the period will go up to alarming levels, not to mention the shortage of available yachts.
Another serious problem will be the human waste from all these vessels. Piraeus harbour and all the marinas in the vicinity will become enormous sewage dumps. The people chartering these yachts as hotels are not yachties and will not know, or care, about the use of holding tanks and will simply dump the results of the exercising of normal human bodily functions into the sea. The shore facilities in these marinas will be nine times overstretched.
I promised to refer to transportation again because there will be massive shortages of flights over the period. Don't miss the boat - book early your flight aswell.
You must also realise that the influx of yachts into Athens will produce shortages all over Greece, not only for the period from mid-July to mid-September, but beyond because of the positioning and re-positioning times of the floating hotels.
My advice, therefore, is that if you are a yacht owner avoid Athens for the period, unless you are going to watch the Games, and if you are going to charter - DO IT EARLY, not forgetting to book your flights at the same time. The "last minute booking" syndrome is not going to work in 2004 for the crucial period of the Games and the immediate pre and post period - say 15 July to 15 September.
Finally - how early is early enough ? I would say by Christmas 2003, at the very latest. This way you will both enjoy the early booking discounts, which most of the charter companies are offering, and get the yacht of your choice from the base of your choice. Almi Yachts statistics are showing that by February all yachts will be booked for July/August 2004 and only dinghies will be available !
Alex. Vournas is the owner and managing director of Almi Yachts ltd, a yacht charter company in Greece. He is also the web designer and SEO of www.almiyachts.com
Tickets to Sold-Out-Shows (Concerts, Sports, Theater, Events etc)Dave Hunt
Tickets to Sold-Out-Show
(on the day)
FROM: MAIN EVENT TICKET GUIDE
If you have ever been unfortunate enough to miss out on tickets for your favourite concert or sporting match but you really want to go, then there are techniques that must be followed to ensure your entry to the show. The techniques you will read will work for most concerts and sporting events. We cannot guarantee that these techniques will work every time, but they will work 99% of the time. Thats sorted with, now here is the plan that should be followed in order to gain entry to the show:
The Night Before The Show
First of all, find the arena or stadiums box office telephone number. You need to bypass the typical automated message service (you can usually do this manually by pressing 0 a few times) and get through to a ticket agent. Quote the name of the show, and ask if there are going to be extra tickets available before the show tomorrow. It may be too early for them to tell you this information, but is always worth checking for some peace of mind.
If the ticket agent says No then you now must scan the Internet. Check ticket exchanges, auction sites, and specific bands/team websites message boards to see if there are any spare tickets floating around.
The Day of the Event
Its now the day of the event, you still have no ticket and no way (to your knowledge) of getting them. You must now head down to the venue itself. Make sure you are at the venue roughly 90 minutes before it is to start. This will give you enough time to get your tickets and to get in & settled. You must now follow these steps accurately to be guaranteed a ticket at the cheapest price:
You just arrived at the arena, you must now go directly to the box office. At the box office you must ask if there are any tickets for the event. 90% of the time there will be tickets available, usually on the floor seating or side stage (for concerts), ready for you to buy. These are called ticket holds (as described in the Main Event Ticket Guide). The reason for ticket holds is simply for security and calculation. For example, in concerts, the amount of seats on the floor can only be finalized when they set up the stage, therefore they must sell less tickets than necessary to make sure they dont sell too many tickets! Ticket holds sometimes occur for the true fans/supporters who are unable to purchase tickets because of ticket brokers and scalpers. The biggest reason however, is its a security procedure that most events most undertake. Anyway, this is the first step. If there were tickets available, I would recommend you buying them from the box office rather than scalpers.
The next step is to circle to venue, and ask the different tickets scalpers (people who buy & sell tickets for profit) what prices they want for their tickets. You should find that they vary dramatically per scalper, and so try to memorize the cheapest areas. The key places that scalpers flock are the main entrances and the box office, but are often more expensive in these places. Dont be tempted to purchase tickets just yet unless your happy with the price/or there are few ticket scalpers around. Scalpers will always be at events that have a high demand and if the event is not in high demand then you should have easily gotten tickets for the venue/club itself! IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: The closer to the event, the cheaper the scalpers will sell their tickets.
The next thing to do is to try and find fans with extra/spare tickets. Fans will not be looking for much for their tickets and so tickets can come cheap! Its quite easy to tell the difference between fans and scalpers. Scalpers are usually interested in buying tickets, not just selling. Scalpers will also be standing in one place, while fans tend to walk around. The biggest difference is of course the clothes (this is easier to tell the difference in concerts). Fans will usually have the team colours (sporting events), or dressed to look good/performers t-shirt (concerts) while scalpers will be in everyday clothes. If you find a fan with tickets buy them here instead of the scalpers, as you will find the prices are cheaper.
You must now buy your tickets from scalpers. The biggest factor now is timing, for sporting events then you are better purchasing tickets for the start, but for concerts its not so important as the supporting acts arent so special. Its now up to you how long you wait to get your tickets, the later you leave it, the cheaper the tickets will be. Take into account whether you have been to this venue before. An important thing to know is, as soon as the show is scheduled to start the ticket prices plummet! A decade ago (before my Free Ticket Methods), I used to be able to get tickets for a few dollars/pounds that were worth anything up to 30/$50. Its truly amazing how much you can save by missing the first 5 minutes of a show.
Enjoy the show!
Thats all there is to it. You should never have to miss an event that you want to attend. You have now read how to get tickets on the day of the event and maybe even for a discount, but none of this is as good as getting FREE tickets and even BACKSTAGE PASSES! Click the link below to learn how to do this:
http://www.ticketsecrets.net
Dave Hunt is Webmaster of the Main Event Ticket Guide website, ticketsecrets.net. He has been a ticket broker for 10 years, and umleashes all the insider secrets on how to get front row seats, backstage passes and much more! Check out: http://www.ticketsecrets.net for further details
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