Chapter 1548: Huge crowds of people
Huge crowds of people...
Early in the morning, the town of Wimbledon could already feel the majesty of the highest temperature this year. Although it was not yet noon, the temperature was already striding towards 30 degrees Celsius. The golden sunlight fell on the green grass, like a quiet rural painting slowly unfolding.
However, the tranquility was broken by the surging crowds of people, and the town was caught in the storm of carnival.
In the other three Grand Slams, the kick-off time of the center court is often later, but the kick-off time of other courts is earlier, forming a mismatch; but this is not the case at Wimbledon. All courts kick off at 1:00 p.m., and spectators can come to watch the game after lunch.
It was just past nine o'clock, and there were still four hours before kick-off, but Wimbledon was already packed with people. Was it too early? Not really.
To be precise, if fans arrive at Wimbledon now, they will be seen as outsiders and are already late.
Spectators arrived at Wimbledon early just to buy tickets.
The reason is that among its countless traditions, Wimbledon has retained a very special one: queuing for tickets.
In the Internet age, online ticket purchases through websites and applications have become widely popular. Like the US Open, the ticket purchase channel will be launched online even a year in advance to remind fans to set time reminders and wait for ticket opening notifications. The audience only needs to click a few times on the web page to complete the ticket purchase.
However, Wimbledon is an exception, and they still insist that spectators need to arrive at the scene and queue up to buy tickets.
Of course, Wimbledon is not stubborn. They stick to the club membership system and have also set up some ticket purchasing methods that keep up with the times.
The first one is to register online in advance for the lottery, which is a lucky draw. You need to register with the official website six months in advance every year, and then wait for the lottery. The chance is very, very low.
The second way is to buy tickets online. Wimbledon has also opened an online ticket purchase system, which goes on sale the night before the match day. Each person is limited to two tickets. In other words, if you want to watch the fourth match day, you must prepare to grab tickets on the night of the third match day.
The key point is that the online ticket purchasing channel only releases 200 tickets - not for one stadium, but for all stadiums combined, a total of 200 tickets. After being distributed to different stadiums, there are less than 20 tickets per stadium on average, which is better than the first lottery method, but not much better.
The third option, buying bonds issued by Wimbledon or joining the All England Club to get tickets, is limited to a few wealthy people.
The fourth way is to queue up to buy tickets.
Perhaps, some people will wonder, apart from the third common ticket purchase method that does not work, the first two ticket purchase methods are not humane, but seem to be making things difficult for the audience. What is the Wimbledon Organizing Committee thinking? In fact, it is not complicated.
Wimbledon respects tradition and they always believe that queuing to buy tickets can mobilize the audience's activity and enthusiasm; moreover, Wimbledon has set up a series of relevant measures to encourage it.
For example, Wimbledon reserves the best seats for the same ticket price for spectators who queue up all night long. In other words, the spectators sitting in the rock zone at the front of the stadium are often not VIP members or wealthy people, but the most enthusiastic and crazy fans.
For example, in order to limit ticket scalpers, Wimbledon has set up a series of thresholds and a procedure before entering the final ticket window:
staff will distribute wristbands one by one on site, silver for the Center Court, pink for Court No. 1, blue for Court No. 2, and so on. You walk in with the wristband, and when you arrive at the ticket window, you must purchase tickets according to the wristband.
At the same time, each person can only have one wristband, so the staff can clearly calculate the number of tickets sold. Once the wristbands for the corresponding stadium have been distributed, it means that the stadium is full, and the audience behind will naturally not be able to buy tickets. They can either choose other stadiums or give up.
Of course, scalpers still cannot be stopped, but it is precisely because of Wimbledon's layers of checkpoints that the costs of scalpers increase and the final ticket prices are incredible.
Taking the Central Stadium as an example, the uniform price is 78 pounds, but after scalpers resell it, the price is 1,500 pounds, which is nearly twenty times higher. Ordinary fans often cannot afford it, which greatly weakens the existence of the buyer's market and further leads to a decrease in scalpers.
Most importantly, Wimbledon encourages spectators to queue up and buy tickets themselves: for the same 78-pound tickets, if you can stand at the front of the ticket-buying line, your seat at the stadium will be in the first row, allowing you to enjoy the game of the giants up close; but if you arrive late, you may have to sit in the top corner of the third floor and have to use a telescope to see the game.
In addition, just like buying tickets online, you can only buy tickets for the day each time you queue up to buy tickets, and you cannot buy tickets for the future in advance; for fans, this is both a good thing and a bad thing. The biggest advantage is that they can buy tickets after the schedule and stadium arrangements for the next day are released.
This way, you can ensure you get to see the games you want to watch, rather than blindly booking a ticket a week in advance only to find out your favorite player has been scheduled to play in another stadium.
It is precisely because of this that countless fans often come to the scene one night in advance to set up tents, waiting here all night for the ticket window to open the next morning, so that they can buy tickets for their favorite matches as soon as possible.
Some fanatical fans even started queuing at six in the morning the day before in order to watch the game of the Big Four. After queuing for twenty-seven hours, they finally got their wish and bought tickets for the center stadium - for only 78 pounds.
To this end, Wimbledon has set up parking lots, camping sites, luggage storage, dining cars, mobile toilets and other facilities, and staff are always available to provide assistance. The orderly yet noisy scene has long become the most beautiful scenery of Wimbledon every year.
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Perhaps, some people are curious about how Wimbledon, which sticks to tradition, became a tennis mecca?
The long queues for tickets are just the tip of the iceberg.
Fans who come to the scene to buy tickets feel like they are attending a rock concert, making a special pilgrimage to Wimbledon. It is a ritual, a party, and a carnival. It is because of the personal experience that they can more deeply feel the enthusiasm and passion of the event.
In the Internet age, life is convenient and everything/resources are so easy to get that people don’t feel the weight of the “process”. The experience of buying a ticket by clicking on the screen is completely different from going to the scene and queuing for twenty hours to complete the purchase.
The retro style of Wimbledon makes people feel the weight of life again. Those cumbersome, complicated and even rigid traditions are spread throughout every corner of the event, bit by bit showing the charm of tennis as a game and participating in major events, which has created the unique status of Wimbledon.
(End of this chapter)