Where/ when? Summer or Winter?

Aren't they great!? I'm so sad they're almost over....

I've never been, but I used to want to be an Olympic track runner.

1980 Winter @ Lake Placid. Was a disaster with p.p. planning and anything that could go wrong did. It was especially aggravating because at the time I worked at Albany's MOST EXPENSIVE hotel, where thy LPOC did all their Capital Region events. Surely they could have found a more moderately priced place and used some of the savings for better planning, spectator transportation and comfort. Would never ever try to attend an Olympic event.

Hubby and I went to many events when the Olympics were here in Atlanta. We had a great time.

Went every day (except two) during the Atlanta Olympics. Had a blast.

Atlanta for me too, and Savannah where we lived, was the venue for the yachting events. I was an Olympic volunteer for those events...still have my little Olympic outfit: shirts (Olympic rings all over them), skirt, shorts, hat, shoes and socks, watch and credentials badge!

YES, Atlanta.... and she never looked better IMO. Downtown was wonderful until the bomber, but we had a GRAND time. Some people in our neigborhood rented out their homes for big bucks...not me,,,much rather go. I was even an Olympic volunteer and have the complete outfit!!!!

Salt Lake winter games. Wish I had planned for the '06 games but missed the window. The anticipation of an event and it's all over in minutes. Knowing how I felt, I could only imagine how the athlete must have felt.

Mexico City and Munich. I was a kid at both of these and had a blast!

1988 Winter @ Calgary.
WOW - Everything was FANTASTIC!
I have some great memories of my 2 weeks there. Even got to go on a bobsled ride after the games - what a thrill that was!

Gilbert

My favorite was LA '84. Not only did I get to see about 15 events - everything from Rowing to Track and Field (3 days) to swimming to dressage to boxing to baseball and soccer (though got shut out for gymnastics tickets) and the amazing closing ceremonies.

A man who was a year behind me in high school was on the Track/Field team and through him I got to meat a couple of others. Plus wandering around after the closing ceremonies I ran into Daley Thompson and a few other members British team.

One thing - I was staying way down in Huntington Beach and normally getting around from there to places like Pasadena, Ventura Country, the Coloseum would be a nightmare. But they did such a great job of planning in LA (normally an oxymoron). Most companies changed their shift hours for the duration so commute hours were spread out and there were virtually NO traffic jams. It was the easiest trip I've ever taken to LA - driving-wise.

Meet - not meat! Though they were cute

HI..
Openinig night in LA in 84.. it was wonderful!
The fireworks went on for over hour and it was like the finale every time they went off..
I was dating at the time an Olympian and he found me in the crowd and screamed my name and blew me kisses.. talk about impressive!

Salt Lake City 2004! We went on a last minute trip. Had tix to one event through a friend. Boys went to hockey, girls ice dancing. We were able to then get scalped tix for other events. The atmosphere was really electric and exciting. We loved watching the aerial jumping. They had rock music blasting the whole time and it was really fun.

Looking forward to Vancouver 2010 as we live an hour south - news reports talk about the preparations all the time now. One issue was the problem with folks not having passports and unable to get across the border - which although selfish of me, might make it easier to get into the events!

Has anyone noticed the very light attendance at the figure skating events? That seems odd to me.

I noticed that too, inthechips2. I wonder why.

As I understand it the arena is essentially full for the skating. Those empty seats are the ones reserved for dignataries/reltives/various IOC guests etc. Those empty seats are the ones right around the rink and in the best locations. But tix for the public - those are 95% sold.

Apparently NBC is livid about the situation since it makes the events look less popular. They asked the Turin OC to move people into those seats but were turned down.

I have a question that you might be able to answer. Can you buy tickets for the events in advance? If so, how do you go about doing this? Or do you have to buy them "at the door" so to speak? My kids will be old enough for the Vancouver games so we are thinking of going, would love to go to China but doubt it will happen. Most of all I really want to see the opening ceremonies.

I also went to the Atlanta Olympics. My brother and his wife had just bought their house there, so my sister and I went to visit for a few days. We went to a bunch of soccer and softball games and had a great time.

vegasnative

I have heard it explained it roughly this way:

There are several rounds of ticket booking, starting about a year or so before the games. In the case of Athens, the first round was open only to EU residents. Sometimes tickets were awarded by lottery, if the event was particularly popular.

About 8 or 9 months out there was another round, open to all, operating through official Internet site(s).

About a month out there were more sales outlets opened up which handled the remaining tickets.

I saw an interview conducted with a scalper at the Turin/Torino games. Some events last week could be picked up for fairly reasonable prices from scalpers at the last minute, such as when the scalper turned over blocks of tickets originally bought by, and then sold off by, various corporations. The events weren't the most exclusive ones (e.g. the quarterfinals as opposed to the finals) but the point is, you could get them at the last minute.

To sum up: if Beijing and Vancouver follow the example of Athens/Turin, there will be a similar system of ticket selling. I should warn you that from what I've heard, tickets for the opening ceremonies can be quite expensive (at least, a ticket costing several hundred dollars is expensive to to me).

We went to Montreal..must have been early 70's without tickets, but saw lots of events by scalping. Went to LA in 84 and bought tickets ahead of time. Wonderful times!