Babies Charged for London 2012 Tickets

In a strange twist to ongoing London 2012 Olympic ticketing saga, parents with infants including babies will have to pay for their admission during the games.

Organisers of the 2012 Games have confirmed that every child, including young babies carried by parents, will require their own ticket, even those who hadn’t been conceived when the tickets were purchased.

One of many angry parents on the influential website Mumsnet described it as the “biggest rip-off in the history of London”.

Around a third of the Olympics sessions had special “pay your age” prices for those under 16, but for those events that didn’t parents with newly born children find themselves in the position of having to buy new, and in some cases, full-price tickets costing more than £100 for their child.

The Winter Olympics in Vancouver admitted babies under two years of age for free. Lord’s Cricket Ground has the same policy for its cricket matches, yet when it hosts the Olympic archery competition babies will need their own tickets.

A press spokesman conceded that some venues are more baby friendly than others, but that a consistent line had to be found across all venues.

A London 2012 spokesperson said, “We want families and young people to come and enjoy the Games, which is why we created pay your age tickets at a third of sessions. Of course we understand that some new mums may want to take their babies to events they have tickets to and we will look at what we can do when the remaining tickets go on sale in April.”

This ploy is also ironic as official sponsors Procter & Gamble recently introduced a marketing campaign aimed at mums during the Olympics.