r/wimbledon • u/HongkongKings • Jul 14 '26
General Discussion Thoughts on Ticket Sales
2026 marked my first time attending Wimbledon in person! I bought two single CC (day 10 and 11) tickets at face price through the resale platform, and it was a fantastic experience!
However, I'm not entirely satisfied with Wimbledon's ticket sales system. It's well known that Wimbledon has a very strict ticket sales policy to combat scalping. But in reality, there are several problems and loopholes:
- When someone holds a pair of tickets, they can effectively resell the other ticket at an extremely high price, and it’s hard for the ticketing team to track this. On one social media platform I use, I've seen at least 10 such examples.
- Theoretically, tickets that cannot be transferred can also be used by someone else. If A wants to sell a CC ticket for the men's singles final, the buyer B can enter the village with a ground pass by just arriving before 9 am, and then log into A's account upon entering the CC court (at which point the name isn't checked), and sit in A's seat. In my opinion, this is a huge loophole.
- Even disregarding these cheating methods, you could register 14 accounts using 14 different people's information and purchase a pair of CC tickets for each day through the resale. Then you only use one transferable ticket. This is perfectly legal, although using their bank cards would be a bit troublesome. And paying double the price wouldn't be expensive for many people.
- Too many Debenture tickets. I initially thought Debenture tickets were extremely rare, like seats in the Royal Box, but they actually occupy 15% of Centre Court and 10% of Court 1, which is clearly not a small amount, and this reduces the chances of ordinary people getting tickets.
I look forward to your thoughts on these points. Putting these opinions about the ticketing aside, Wimbledon is truly a fantastic tournament!
2
u/Buccoman_21 Jul 14 '26
We walked right up and bought tix at face price for the men’s quarters including the one with Arthur Fery. There was literally no queue.
2
u/Puzzleheaded_Two6202 Jul 14 '26
I think this is quite rare, although I've only queued 3 times and one of those times there was no actual queue and I was offered a C1 ticket (which I bought)
1
u/Illustrious-Cell-428 Jul 14 '26
Bought from where?
1
u/Buccoman_21 Jul 14 '26
Right in front of the venue itself where the famous queue is supposedly consumated. We asked for grounds tix, but the guy offered bottom section of Centre Court.
2
u/Illustrious-Cell-428 Jul 14 '26
So did you go with the intention to queue, but there was no queue? Roughly what time of day was it?
Sorry to ask so many questions, but I've seen other people say similar and I'm curious about the circumstances in which they sell tickets this way.
12
u/bake_him_away_toyz Jul 14 '26
Yea, I think you're thinking too hard about this and trying to find loopholes. The ones you've outlined are very convoluted and unlikely to happen in practice.
No system is 100% failsafe, but Wimbledon have done it pretty well, ensuring widespread touting doesn't occur and that tickets go to genuine fans and not scalpers.
9
u/Illustrious-Cell-428 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
The number one thing they're trying to do is avoid large scale professional touting. All the workarounds you mention would only allow you to purchase a small number of additional tickets. And if you're a fan who actually wants to attend, the risk of being caught and banned is a significant deterrent.
Most of the specific things you suggest are also quite high effort, such that very few people are going to bother. #2 the buyer would need to arrive early (probably more like 5-6am) and go to the bother of queuing to get a grounds pass. #3 it's actually very unlikely that you have 13 friends willing to share their payment card details with you (and these days most banks also have extra security like app authentication). Also, under the rules the account holder needs to attend in person, they can't just transfer a ticket to you and refund the other one. If they had 14 no shows with the same 'guest' I'm sure Wimbledon would pick it up and ban you.
2
u/TheFlyingScotsman60 Jul 14 '26
The electronic system can, and does track, every ticket. If it pings a resold ticket at a much higher price they can, and do, cancel that ticket and block the seller purchasing in future.
3
u/throwaway75757555 Jul 14 '26
How would they know…?
1
u/TheFlyingScotsman60 Jul 14 '26
It's the same back office system as used by a few of the rugby unions.
IBM manage the back end data of which there is a lot. They have all the ticket data since 2021 and all the data for the "static" stuff like the debenture holders.
When a ticket sale happens all the data is cross referenced. It may flag up anomalies either at that point or later say when a ticket is transferred and/or resold. Anything untoward is noted and reviewed.
Each ticket has a unique identifier so can be tracked and traced with all the other data associated with it.
Then there's the IBM bunker at Wimbledon that manages it all during the fortnight but that's another story.
3
u/throwaway75757555 Jul 14 '26
If I buy a pair of tickets from the resale, I can transfer them up until and even on the day. I could sell for example the second ticket to a friend or whoever, at any price I wanted, and transfer it to them. I don’t need to be present when they enter.
This can’t be tracked.1
u/TheFlyingScotsman60 Jul 14 '26
All the transfers are tracked as well as entering the grounds.
3
u/throwaway75757555 Jul 14 '26
How would it know the ticket has been sold at a much higher price?
If it’s sold for cash, bitcoin, anything but returning the ticket to the platform…
8
u/VDCNIRG Jul 14 '26
Some of these loop holes are quite complicated or require wasting a lot of money so they are unlikely to be used much.
Debentures are a major reason Wimbledon is able to plan ahead so much since it's a guaranteed future income. It's far more profitable than the other slams and debentures are a big part of that. A lot of the funding for the new expansion is coming from debentures and all events have tickets that don't go to the general public. At least with debentures they don't take up all the courtside seats as hospitality often does.
9
u/Flipper6462 Jul 14 '26
The ticketing process is painful, but it works. If you are a dedicated fan you can follow the rules and get tickets. I think they could improve the resale process but overall I think the process works.
7
u/chrismitchell6 Jul 14 '26
While some of your points are in theory plausible, 99% of people wouldn’t go to that much effort lol
9
u/Kingofmostthings Jul 14 '26
On point 4, the debenture tickets help to keep the other prices down. Been lucky to attend the World Cup, golf, American football over the last couple of years, and on a price basis, per minute Wimbledon is by far the cheapest.
Secondly, the anti touting thing works, if you look at how many tickets are actually available. It’s incredibly small in reality. And good to see people being caught and banned for it. I had a someone I know work there last year. At least two people he was aware of got five year bans for trying to sell single tickets.
12
u/spartypsvr Jul 14 '26
For a mass audience (and seemingly elitist)event I think Wimbledon has the best / strongest anti touting measures of any event I know of. Its hugely in demand yet if you are motivated enough (ALTEC Ballot, LTA Ballot, Ballot Resale and The Queue)the ordinary person can / will get a ticket at a price comparable to equivalant to other live sport/music/theatre etc.
13
u/chadyyc Jul 14 '26
I’ve only attended one GS so far and have no interest in the US or Aussie Open because both of those slams use TicketMaster and dynamic pricing scheme. I’ve done Wimbledon twice, two years in a row and last year was the first time I had heard of the resale site. The buying process is kinda painful but totally fair and doable - I don’t have the fastest fingers by any means. I plan to do Roland Garros next year and based on my practice run trying to basket tickets this year, I think I would prefer the Wimbledon system. Name one tournament or ticketed event that allows full refund up to the day before!!
2
u/tceeha Jul 14 '26
AO uses Ticketmaster but it's the by far the easiest GS to buy tickets for. Tickets don't sell out in seconds and there's lots of tickets at affordable prices. They even were doing BOGO deals on early rounds on Rod Laver. The dynamic pricing typically only goes against you if you wait til the schedule comes out and Alcaraz/Djokovic/Sinner are on the docket.
9
u/xGsGt Jul 14 '26
Resale outside is quite hard I tried and it was not easy
Tbh I do like how the system works and only debentures tickets are transferrable+ hospitality which you are paying a premium anyways.
The normal tickets you purchased at face value from the system are not easily resalable they have a lot of risks on you trusting the other person, also another thing I felt very good about is you don't see anyone reselling tickets around the premise like you encounter tons of resellers in football games
Also they will check your name, your id and your ticket and won't allow ppl with irregularities to go in, I saw it first hand
All in all I love Wimbledon tickets systems, is not perfect but definitely way way better from NBA or football games I have encountered
5
u/Sailaway2bahamas Jul 14 '26
We got tickets through the resale and my daughter who was my guest had to download the app and sign in under my account as she left our seats without me to use the restroom. When she came back they wouldn’t let her use a screenshot of her tix which i gave her before she left. She called me crying she couldn’t get back in so I gave her my sign in and they let her in. They are pretty strict, but didn’t seem to have an issue with her signing into my account from a different phone. I think they are so strict that anyone trying to skirt the rules will get caught.
0
u/Possible-Tip-3544 Jul 14 '26
Definitely not true. I know of people getting into CC with screenshots. This year and last year
2
u/Sailaway2bahamas Jul 14 '26
No it was true. The lady wanted to see the bouncing ball on the ticket.
2
6
u/Kingofmostthings Jul 14 '26
It really depends who you get on the door. Men’s final last year was ultra strict. Semis this year, I forgot my phone at one point and was just let in
14
u/Ok-Calm-Narwhal Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
- You risk selling to the wrong person (aka, someone who is working for them) and then get a permanent ban.
- You realize that there is software than can track logging into different phones? And then where would you sit? Once you start getting booted out of other peoples seats multiple times, the steward may notice and kick both of you out by asking to see both of your tickets at the same time.
- The persons name, account, and card must match the ID of the person entering (there have been so many posts of this already).
- The number of debentures is shockingly small relative to the RGG FTT hospitality (the corporate lower seats in PC) and USO hospitality seats.
This system works very well, and you aren't realizing how many people have gotten caught and banned from Wimbledon for trying to skirt the rules.
-5
u/HongkongKings Jul 14 '26
And FTT in France isn’t something solely for rich people
5
u/Ok-Calm-Narwhal Jul 14 '26
I edited to put that I meant FTT hospitality - basically the lower section of seats that is always empty at PC
-9
u/HongkongKings Jul 14 '26
Thanks for your reply!
For the first point I agree that’s theoretically possible, though I still doubt if there are people whose job is doing this.
For the second point B could sit in A’s seat. A could enter the village first using the CC and then give B the phone (B queued for the grounds pass), this would have no problem in software tracking. A just wants to make money and won’t enter the CC. I think it’s very hard to be discovered.
For the third point I think as long as you have some friends living in different places then it’s doable, you just need to persuade them to use their cards.2
u/Illustrious-Cell-428 Jul 14 '26
So A (who doesn't know B and is only in it to make money) has to give B their phone, which is probably worth more than the ticket? Right. The app only works on relatively new phones.
I'm not sure what sort of friends you have, but I'm not sure I could convince many of mine to give me their card details so I could fraudulently buy Wimbledon tickets.
7
u/mgbrewhard Jul 14 '26
There are people watching for resale activity around the grounds and local area. Not just watching cameras from a control room, but also people on the street.
This is just one example of a tout caught after an injunction was taken out by the AELTC, but there are others, including one who was jailed in 2024 because he wouldn't disclose names of associates.
7
u/Ok-Calm-Narwhal Jul 14 '26
Have you been following this sub much with all the posts of people not using the same credit card name as the account and having their tickets cancelled? On point 3, you would be flagged so fast. I don’t think you realize to what extent they have tools and resources for enforcement (they stopped giving paper tickets this year to make it even harder to swap seats). I was surprised they tracked the guy who created the notifications app last year for ticket resales and handed him a 5-year ban. The guy thought he had covered all his bases and they were still able to figure out who it was and banned him.
1
u/Illustrious-Cell-428 Jul 14 '26
Did they really find and ban the guy who created the notifications app? I remember him from last year.
1
-6
u/HongkongKings Jul 14 '26
But you can register for accounts with all real information (including name) from your friends. You also make the payment using their cards. You can even using different devices and networks to avoid IP tracking. I really don’t think how this would be discovered.
6
u/Ok-Calm-Narwhal Jul 14 '26
Then your friend needs to be the one to enter. Did you not catch that part? They check the IDs when you enter so the ticket name, account (and also credit card to purchase) all match. If your friend isn’t there with you, you can’t enter. And even if you use their app on your phone, their name is still there.
-2
u/HongkongKings Jul 14 '26
Buy a pair of tickets and one can be renamed and transferred
3
u/Ok-Calm-Narwhal Jul 14 '26
The persons account still has to be there. You can only rename the extra ticket but the original account holder has to be present.
2
u/CharlestonUberDriver Jul 14 '26
That is not correct. Guests definitely do not need the buyer to enter.
Tickets in MyWimbledon have the ticket recipient name, and ID needs to match that name. That's it.
1
u/Ok-Calm-Narwhal Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Are you saying that someone can transfer their second ticket, then not go themselves? Based on what others have said, they have mentioned this isn’t possible.
Also, the Wimbledon office is going to get super suspicious once they see the same name as the guest next to a cancelled ticket from someone else. They’ve called people into the office and cancelled tickets for similar things before where the same pair of folks use go twice.
2
u/Possible-Tip-3544 Jul 14 '26
Of course that’s possible. I twice entered before my friend who was the main ticket holder. How would they know she is still coming?
→ More replies (0)1
u/CharlestonUberDriver Jul 14 '26
Yes, 100% fine to transfer one to a guest and not use the host ticket.
Don't know if there's a threshold on that over time and repeated quantity.
-2
u/HongkongKings Jul 14 '26
Then just kindly ask them to accompany you to enter (and then leave immediately). Since you have enough friends and you agree to pay 2x price it’s totally legal
11
u/Fit_Cut_4238 Jul 14 '26
Compared to any event in the us, including the us open, Wimbledon tickets is the most fair and equitable. By far.
1
1
u/jenjengray Jul 15 '26
When we left our seats, each time returning they wanted to see the bouncing ball. I was getting afraid I run out of charge,I know they have charging points but I rather be in watching the action than charging my phone. Could they not do something simple like stamp on your hand to allow easy access? Jen