The introduction of barcodes into MMS means that MMS can now be used for both digital vouchers and ticketing, positioning the technology to be used in a variety of services in the run-up to 2010. Bizcommunity.com reports that while the barcode is used to validate the MMS as a ticket or voucher, MMS is also able to contain additional information about the event or shop/shopping centres where the voucher can be used. So for example, if MMS were to be used to issue tickets for world cup games in 2010, the MMS would be validated as a ticket by the barcode and could also contain information about the venue, the two teams playing, statistics about previous encounters between the two countries, additional fixtures and so on.
Around 1 000 German football fans are contributing each month to a savings club to fund their trip to the 2010 Fifa World Cup, a travel agency working with the 2010 World Cup Savings Club in the Lower Saxony state said. Hans Overhage of Vieten Tours in Dusseldorf estimates at around 3,500 euros the cost for a German of spending two weeks at the World Cup and of attending three World Cup games. The savings club, which is the brainchild of Wilhelm Koormann, dates to before to the 1994 World Cup in the US, another destination that stretched the budget of low-to-middle income German fans. Members of the club have been paying around 50 euros per month since November 2006, according to Overhage.
The eThekwini Municipality has waived a 15% levy to be paid to it by the KwaZulu-Natal Cricket Union for ticket sales for the Twenty20 cricket World Cup. The Mercury reports that this will allow the union to spend the money in other areas. In requesting the waiver, the union said it would spend the money on its development programme and volunteer training for the 2010 World Cup. The union’s CE, Cassim Docrat, said that Durban had been given rights to host the cricket tournament ’on the basis that all infrastructural costs would be borne by the union’. This had resulted in unexpected expenses. ’However, due to the prestige of the event we have decided to accept the event. It showcases our city and provides a significant injection into the local economy,’ Docrat said.
LOC CE, Danny Jordaan has urged local football fans who want to attend matches at the World Cup in SA in 2010 to ’get in line early for a limited number of affordable tickets’. According to a report on the IoL site, he also warned that South African soccer supporters would have to change their habit of expecting to get into grounds just before kick-off. Jordaan is in Zurich for two days of meetings with ticket distribution, pricing and ticket security top of the agenda at Fifa’s headquarters. ’The big question will not be prices, but if we have enough tickets,’ said Jordaan. However, Jordaan said soon after arriving in Zurich that he was determined to make sure local fans would stand a chance of getting tickets.
At the top of the 2010 World Cup mission statement is the aim to raise the profile and reputation of the host nation, region and continent. With that in mind, organising committee CE Danny Jordaan has travelled to London to update British businesses, football organisations, tourist companies and SA’s ex-pat community on the world cup campaign. The SABC reports that Jordan has told a conference that the 2010 World Cup in SA will be a world class event. Giving details, Jordaan set out the achievements so far in bringing the World Cup dream to reality, including the agreement on the event mascot and plans to dramatically increase the number of luxury coaches in the country. He also outlined future challenges, one of which will be ticket allocation. Three million tickets will be available to watch the 32 teams that make the finals - but many more football fans are expected to want to take part in the World Cup.
South Africa’s renamed cities will have their former names and new names coupled on tickets and for international branding purposes during the 2010 World Cup. But officials said the process of renaming towns and cities will not have a negative effect on the staging of the soccer World Cup. The Daily News reports that they said while the names of various host cities were being changed, they would be coupled with their former names for international purposes. ’We have agreed on the name changes proposed by various host cities, that they will be used within South Africa,’ Local Organising Committee chairman, Irvin Khoza, said.
Soccer enthusiasts will have to get used to sitting in their own seats as 2010 regulations are being put in place ahead of the World Cup in three years. The Cape Times reports that Tottenham Hotspur tour of South Africa this week is more than just a soccer bonanza for supporters of the beautiful game - it is also a practice run for the security services ahead of the World Cup. Police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Vish Naidoo said one of the regulations that would be implemented was personalised seating. ’Only the person holding the ticket of a specific seat may be allowed to sit there. At the moment it only refers to the seat number. During the World Cup only the person in whose name it is bought will be allowed to sit in the allocated seat,’ said Naidoo. Naidoo said details of how this would be implemented would be dealt with by Fifa, but it was unlikely that people would have to carry an identity book or passport.
The Western Cape provincial government will use the Vodacom Challenge match against Tottenham Hotspur at Newlands Stadium to promote the Operation Buyela Ebaleni (Going back to the stadium) campaign. The Sowetan reports that Whitey Jacobs, Western Cape MEC for cultural affairs, sports and recreation, said the campaign is aimed at encouraging soccer lovers in the province to rather watch live soccer games. ’We are delighted to be hosting the Vodacom Challenge, which forms a critical part of our Buyela Ebaleni campaign, where we are mobilising and encouraging soccer lovers to attend live matches,’ said Jacobs. ’The tournament does not only allow us to host high-profile matches but is also an opportunity for the Western Cape, and Cape Town in particular as a host city for the 2010 World Cup, to showcase our passion for soccer.’
The Gauteng Provincial Government is well on its way of fulfilling its commitment of leaving a lasting legacy after the 2010 World Cup. The provincial government initiated the fan parks to ensure that those who do not have tickets to the 2010 games, see the games live on screens at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown and various other planned venues across the province. This is planned to be ready before the 2007 Vodacom Challenge later this year, the Telkom Charity Cup which is currently being played, and the Confederation Cup in 2009. According to the City of Johannesburg spokesperson, Virgil James, this is part of creative thinking ahead of a successful 2010 World Cup. ’If it will work during the Vodacom Challenge and Telkom Charity Cup, we can all hope for more when we host the Confederation Cup and World Cup respectively,’ he said.
First National Bank employees are set to become the first people on the planet to receive tickets to the 2010 World Cup. The Times reports that the banking group announced that it would cash in on the benefits of its $30m sponsorship of the global showpiece by reserving about 3 000 tickets for its employees. Such was the excitement that brand director Derek Carsterns could not resist taking a dig at competitors and said employees of other banking groups would have to queue for tickets just like other desperate fans. Carsterns said the programme would get under way in October when the bank would give away the first 400 tickets during a draw conducted for the purpose. LOC CE Danny Jordaan said the announcement effectively made each of FNB’s 26 000 employees stakeholders in the tournament.
Colour-coded ticket system for Tshwane - 04/07/2007
The City of Tshwane will use the 2007 Vodacom Challenge final at Loftus on July 28 to familiarise the supporters with the World Cup ticketing rules. The Sowetan reports that the municipality’s 2010 World Cup Programme directorate will introduce the colour-coded ticket system and park-and-ride transport. It will happen during the final which will feature English Premiership side Tottenham Hotspur and the winner between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs. ’We’ll start with the new ticket system on July 28 to determine the area where fans will sit,’ said Godfrey Nkwane, CE of the directorate. ’There were all sorts of bad things reported about the recent friendly between Mamelodi Sundowns and Spanish giants Barcelona regarding the seats. We have learned some lessons from that match, hence we felt the time was right to start educating our supporters about the seating arrangements.’
Fan parks will ensure more than a million people come to SA, despite the limited tickets available for matches at the 2010 World Cup. Speaking at the Soccerex seminar, Football Academic at Liverpool University, Dr Rogan Taylor highlighted the importance of public viewing spaces and fan parks during the world cup. ’Less than 10 years ago, the host country would have advised people not to travel if they did not have tickets. But now everybody comes, ticket or no tickets,’ he said. According to an allAfrica.com report, he said up to a million visitors were expected in SA and many would stay longer. Taylor further noted the value of hosting the world cup was beyond monetary value. The Soccerex seminar, which was held at the Sandton Convention centre over the last two days, was aimed at discussing what business opportunities will be presented by the football Soccerex expo to be held in November.
High-tech systems to eliminate 2010 chaos - 24/06/2007
Cellphones and watches could replace printed tickets for fans wanting to watch World Cup matches in 2010. The use of such modern technology would counter ticket fraud and eliminate chaos at the turnstiles during the World Cup, according to access control experts. According to a report on the IoL site, their comments came shortly after several soccer fans had to be hastily accommodated at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria when they discovered the tickets they had bought for the Mamelodi Sundowns/Barcelona clash had been duplicated. Also contributing to the chaos were traffic jams and the fact the people did not sit in the correct seats. This prompted callers to a Gauteng radio station to question the organisers’ ability to control crowds attending matches during the international event. Access control and other technological security innovations were showcased by security specialists at the 13th annual security industry expo, Securex, in Sandton. It remains unclear when the 2010 organising committee will put out tenders for access control to the stadiums.?
Just as well that Sepp Blatter left the country 24 hours before FC Barcelona’s 2-1 win over Mamelodi Sundowns at Loftus after his publicised ’only God can take the World Cup away from SA’ sojourn. The Fifa president might have revised his assessment had he witnessed the traffic chaos surrounding Loftus, and the confusion at the turnstiles that kept thousands outside the ground in spite of the delayed kick-off of almost 30 minutes. In a column on the Sunday Times site, Sy Lerman says that ’the Loftus media precinct of 100 seats was occupied by people who had no closer connection to newspapers than reading the small print. In spite of repeated pre-match assurances from Sundowns officials that everything would be “in order”, the press box resembled a market garden at early morning bidding time. Hardly anyone knew where to find their seats. Some were occupied by children, with journalists forced to watch from “standing room ” vantage points.’
Loftus Versfeld was engulfed in a sea of yellow, blue and maroon on Wednesday night as SA’s PSL champions Mamelodi Sundowns took on their most renowned opponents yet - European giants Barcelona. According to a report on the IoL site, the final score of 2-1 in favour of the visitors didn’t matter - it was a win on the night for soccer and for our city. There were no stampedes or logistical glitches. Instead the fans were treated to an exhibition match that could be used as a benchmark for how things should - and can - be done in the 2010 World Cup. The allocated ticketing system worked perfectly as the thousands of soccer fans from Gauteng descended on Loftus.
Digital vouchers revolutionise e-ticketing - 14/06/2007
Cellphone penetration in the local market and the advent of digital vouchers should make it easy for Gauteng transport MEC Ignatius Jacobs to have an e-ticketing system that allows commuters to seamlessly use public transport. ITWeb reports that this could include taxis, trains, the Gautrain and perhaps the mooted monorail link between Soweto and the Johannesburg CBD. ’MMS is a multimedia-rich medium combining graphics, text, sound and mobility, making it ideal for bar-coded tickets, vouchers or redeemable coupons which can be sent to someone’s cellphone and redeemed at a retail store,’ said Multimedia Solutions operations director Riaan Groenewald. The technology also has obvious 2010 applications, Groenewald says. Digital ticketing eliminates printing costs, can greatly reduce fraud and corruption in ticket sales, and can help fight the scourge of ticket scalping – all of which will be important to the organisers of the 2010 World Cup. The solution is equally useful at other sports and mass events, such as concerts and fairs, he notes.
SA 2010 World Cup organisers have for the first time given an indication of how much match tickets are going to cost. The Star reports that the cheapest tickets to the first World Cup in Africa, which will go on sale in 2009, are expected to be below the £58 (about R560) price range used in the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Danny Jordaan, CE of the 2010 World Cup organising committee, said prices for tickets had not yet been finalised. ’We must also wait for the final draw to take place and that will be in 2009. We will then be able to finalise the ticket prices,’ commented Jordaan.
No one’s looking after our non-host cities. People (in these cities) know there’s a World Cup but they don’t know if they’ll benefit. The bulk of volunteers for the 2010 World Cup must come from non-hosting cities, the SA Local Government Association (SALGA) said. ’Because this is the biggest sporting event in the world more than double the number of volunteers need to be used than any other event,’ Salga’s chief operations officer Sabelo Wasa told delegates at the Role of Local Government Conference in Boksburg Johannesburg. He said ’the bulk of the volunteers’ must come from non-hosting cities. According to a report on the Sunday Times site, Wasa said because tickets to watch the game would be ’extremely expensive volunteers would get an opportunity to have a glance (at the games)’.
About 3m people will watch the 2010 World Cup matches at 10 stadiums. An SA Tourism study in 2005 indicated that approximately 1.3m would be tourist participants and a third of these would be foreign arrivals. George Mohlakoana, CE of Mangaung 2010, says another 1.8m will be in the country without tickets. In a Business Day column, he says these people will participate in events such as large-screen projections of the game without actually attending a match. ’Visitors to European events are generally short stays. When Germany hosted the 2006 Fifa World Cup, for example, supporters from France or Croatia could fly in the morning of match day and return the following day after the match. However, the situation in SA will be different. Most of the participating teams will come from afar. As a result, visitors will probably stay for a much longer period — it will be too expensive to fly in a day before the match and fly out the following day.
There will be plenty of business opportunities for guesthouses and bed and breakfast facilities during the 2010 World Cup, but there is a heavy price to pay should the owners renege on their agreements with Fifa. According to Business Report, this was the message from Match, the company contracted by Fifa to handle ticketing and accommodation during the World Cup. Sherly van Rooyen, Match’s non-hotel accommodation co-ordinator, said that small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) must be registered with Match to be considered. Should Fifa cancel the reservation, accommodation providers would be paid back all the money, but should they fail to provide the booked rooms, they would be forced to pay three times more to Fifa, she warned.
The 2010 World Cup will contribute at least R51.1bn to GDP between 2006 and 2010, R21bn more than the estimates published during the bidding phase of the World Cup in 2003. Of this revised amount, R15.6bn will be created by foreign tourists. According to Business Report, the revised estimates are from the World Cup’s economic impact assessment study by Grant Thornton’s tourism, hospitality and leisure consulting division. During the bidding phase it was said that 2.7m tickets would be sold and total ticket revenue was expected to be R4.6bn. Now the ticket number has increased to 3.2m.
SA will spend between R2bn to R5bn on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastracture required to host a successful 2010 World Cup. According to a report on the allAfrica.com site, Zakes Mnisi of the LOC said that the country would provide all the technologies needed to execute the event. Some of the infrastructure to be put in place includes ICT solutions such as event management systems. This will encompass software to manage the accreditation of delegates as well as transportation, travel and protocol systems. About 4 000 people would require accreditation for the 2010 World Cup. All stadiums will have ticket compounding points and accreditation centres. These accreditation centres would be as close as one kilometre away from each stadium.
Zim Government called to complement $10bn facility - 07/05/2007
The Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe has called on the Government to complement the $10bn facility announced by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe with a revolving fund for the sector. ’The gesture by the central bank is welcome, this is just a contribution from the RBZ and it is appreciated,’ HAZ president Fungai Mutseyekwa said of the fund set to develop the tourism sector announced by central bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono last week. According to a report on the allAfrica.com site, he said that they were still to find out how the new facility would operate and how players in the sector could access it. Mutseyekwa said the HAZ congress to be held from May 23 to 25, would address the brain drain affecting the sector, adequate training of staff in the catering sector and the competitiveness of products. It would also look at how individual tourist operators can complement the efforts by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority to promote the country’s image ahead of the 2010 World Cup.
Ellis Park passes 2010 WC litmus test – 30/04/2007?
The first derby between clubs Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs at Ellis Park since the 2001 stampede which left 43 people dead has passed without incident. Saturday’s pinnacle Soweto derby was seen as a litmus test for the 2010 World Cup after a number of new security measures were introduced. Beeld reports that these included a security cordon around the stadium to prevent fans without tickets entering. The match ended 1-1. Unlike 2001, no one without a ticket was allowed near the stadium on the fringe of the city centre, and gates opened six hours before kickoff.?
Less than three years before the first whistle blows for the 2010 World Cup, the country’s first Fan Park is hosting a party. According to a report on the allAfrica.com site, the Westerm Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport on Wednesday said it was proud to be hosting SA’s first-ever Fan Park event in Plettenberg Bay on Saturday, 28 April. The Fan Parks, which were pioneered at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, are areas near a match venue with big screens showing the game in much greater detail than even the best stadium seat can provide. The parks allow thousands of fans who are unable to secure one of the of 3m tickets expected to go on sale for the 2010 World Cup, to experience this once in a lifetime opportunity in a party atmosphere with other dedicated fans outside the stadia.
The idea of expanding fan parks in which people can view the 2010 World Cup in every local municipality outside the host cities is under discussion. According to a Mail & Guardian Online report, Dennis Mumble of the World Cup’s LOC on Monday said his organisation was in discussions with Fifa about getting licensing for the signal required to enable such fan parks. ’In June we will have more information about it,’ said Mumble. He said the LOC had decided there would be no base camps for visiting teams inside any of the host cities. He urged delegates from such centres to consider the security and accommodation requirements, should they take up the opportunity. Mumble said it was important that SA’s hosting of the World Cup left behind a legacy.
Four types of fan parks will be built across SA, in African countries and in countries participating in the 2010 World Cup, Fifa 2010 LOC CE Danny Jordaan announced at the launch of the Gauteng 2010 soccer World Cup strategy. Engineering News reports that the fan parks will be built in and around the stadiums, in host cities outside the World Cup zone (townships), in non-host cities inside SA, in the Southern African Development Community, across the African continent and in the 32 countries participating in the event. The fan parks will ensure that as many people as possible will be able to view the matches and ’get a better idea of what SA is about,’ Jordaan explained. In response to the question on the availability of tickets to the local community, he explained that there were only 3m tickets that would be available to the world, including 207 fifa members, broadcasting teams, the 32 nations qualifying, Fifa guests, LOC, commercial partners and the general public.
A shortage of tickets rather than high prices will hamper South Africans who want to see any of the 2010 World Cup matches, said CE of the LOC, Danny Jordaan. ’There will be more than three million tickets in total, but this is the World Cup and so we would be lucky if we have one million of those available for South Africans,’ Jordaan said. Die Burger reports that the tickets for the 64 matches that will take place in SA during 2010 will likely go on sale in 2009. In the meantime the first step for teams to qualify to play in the World Cup will be taken when the preliminary draw takes place in Durban in November.
Colour-coded ticketing for E. Cape fans - 14/03/2007
Colour-coded ticketing will be used for the first time in Eastern Cape when Kaizer Chiefs face Bloemfontein Celtic in a challenge match in PE on March 25. The Sowetan reports that the organisers said this forms part of the province’s initial efforts to create awareness of the 2010 World Cup. PE is one of the cities the LOC chose to host 2010 World Cup matches. The Nelson Mandela Museum Charity Challenge is organised by the museum and proceeds will be donated to Madiba’s charities. The organisers are hoping to raise more than R1.5m.
In 2005, SA’s Department of Home Affairs announced that it had digitized nearly 30m hard-copy records of fingerprints and entered them into its Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS). The initiative, dubbed the ’Back Record Conversion Project,’ aims to eliminate manual, paper-based application processes. The Ecommerce Times reports that Dex Group, along with other biometrics security companies, has their eye on SA and the 2010 World Cup. ’We have a solution called Dex Ticketing that addresses the needs of clients for various types of venues like stadiums, festivals, special events like A1GP (A1 Grand Prix), etc.,’ Dex Group Director Marius van Niekerk said.
