Hackney Weekender: Fool Me Once

I, along with hundreds of thousands of others, logged on to the BBC website on the 25th of March at 11am precisely. I’m sure that every one of us was 100% confident that we would be the lucky owner of a Radio 1 Big Hackney Weekender ticket. I’m not sure where my confidence sprouted from – every other year I’ve been unsuccessful. I think because it’s in London, and I’m from London I’m entitled to a ticket, I deserve it. So there I sat eyes glued to that wretched ‘redirecting page’ every now and again taking a sharp intake of breath at any sign of movement but alas – nothing.

I searched Twitter and Facebook for answers, but that was fruitless. It seemed like the Hackney Weekender madness was spreading. Why is it that at the chance of something free we become bloodthirsty, obsessed with the chance of seeing Jay-Z in what is most likely a very squashed, sweaty venue?

I think it comes down to the fact that we are obsessed with money. I personally find it hard to spend money on anything but Chinese food or sweets. So the chance of a free ticket entices us: the chance to get beer thrown in your hair, an elbow in your mouth, dirt-caked shoes.

I was unsuccessful on both ticketing days and it seems like every single person I know was too. Which leaves the question of: who is actually going? Is it just the elite, the Olympic boroughs? If so, is it okay that I think that’s really unfair? I understand that they want to make it a London festival because of the Olympics, but is letting more than half of London fight it out for one third of the tickets really in the spirit of things?

After I rhetorically asked myself all these things, I decided to do a bit of research into who managed to grab the tickets, and if people in Hackney were smugly sitting back in their computer chairs dreaming of Rihanna. It turns out that only three quarters of the Hackney allocated tickets were actually bought. They didn’t even want them?

I blame the BBC. Firstly, there are probably thousands of south Londoners who are gagging for those tickets but did not register. Bad PR. Secondly, it should have been half of the tickets for all Londoners, not just Olympic boroughs. After all, we’re all in this overcrowded, overpriced mess together.

Image by Pure Primary courtesy of Flickr