In Great Britain , ticket prices range from £ 20 for many events to £ 2,012 for the most expensive seats at the opening ceremony . Free tickets were given to military personnel , over 100.000 free tickets were given to schoolchildren and children were invited to win tickets . Free tickets were also given to the survivors and families of those who died during 7 July 2005 London bombings . Initially , people were able to apply for tickets via a website from 15 March 2011 until 26 April 2011 . There was a huge demand for tickets , with 1.8 million people applying for 20 million tickets – three times the 6.6 million tickets available in the first round lot , with 95 % of the applications from Great Britain . More than 50 % of the sessions went to a random ballot , but over half the people who applied got no tickets as the process was widely criticised . Lord Coe and the LOCOG insisted that the process was fair , and that there was no perfect system . On 11 May 2012 a round of nearly one million " second chance " tickets went on sale , with a second round of ticket sales for events that failed to sell out in the initial allocation . This took place over a 10-day period between 23 June and 3 July 2011 , with priority given to those who were unsuccessful in the first allocation process . At this point there were about 1.7 million tickets available for football and 600,000 for other sports ( including archery , hockey , football , judo , boxing and volleyball ) , with 1.5 million tickets priced between £ 20 and £ 50 . Although technical difficulties were encountered , some events sold out in 15 minutes , and by 8 am , ten sports had sold out . People who were successful in the first round of tickets were allowed to buy more during the period 8 – 17 July 2011 . By this point 1.5 million tickets were available for football and 8,000 for freestyle wrestling on a first-come-first-served basis . By 10 July all the tickets for volleyball had been sold , as 3.5 million tickets had been sold in total
7 July 2005 London bombings
7 July 2005 London bombings
2012 Summer Olympics marketing