Today’s Guest Blogger is Fiona Chow, our Head of UK Communications.

Greetings and salutations from StubHub UK! Welcome to my guest blog from our brand new offices in the heart of the West End.

It’s an exciting time to live and work in London with the 2012 Olympic Games in full flow and the first medals already being claimed. London, already a cultural melting pot, is welcoming visitors from across the globe who were treated to a pretty spectacular Opening Ceremony which included a special appearance from Her Majesty the Queen and two of the country’s most famous spies – James Bond and Johnny English (appearing in his Mr Bean guise).

And while our notoriously temperamental transport system so far seems to be holding up and our notoriously inclement weather has restricted itself to only occasional downfalls, the notorious ticketing system has started to show its cracks. Many events are taking place in disappointingly empty tickets, despite some athletes’ families being turned away due to events being “sold out” and just this week LOCOG released a further 3,000 tickets in an attempt to ensure stadiums are full.

However, for those less sportingly inclined, there is life outside the Olympic Park with the UK summer festival season providing respite from all the finely honed bodies performing in East London. Despite the closure or cancellation of many long-standing festivals, the headline events still remain popular. Topping the list are the V Festival on the 18^th of August and Reading and Leeds shortly after. All three are showing great inventory on the site and promising sales figures. 

 For a dose of tongue in cheek chauvinism Al Murray’s tour begins today and the acclaimed Jesus Christ Superstar tour kicks off this week for those with more traditional entertainment tastes. And finally, if you want to benefit from the spirit of the Games without venturing all the way to the Olympic Park, you can still pick up tickets for Blur at the Closing Party in Hyde Park on the 12^th of August.

So, as well as being a great sporting nation the UK is very much a cultural hotbed with the average UK adult attending 16 events a year – topping the league for live event attendance. Visitors to the Games, or indeed at any time in the year will find plenty to do, whatever your entertainment tastes or budget.

See you soon! 

I’m excited to announce a new project that StubHub is running called Ultimate Fan. Over on our Facebook page (which you all should be fans of already!), is the first of what will be a monthly fan program to find the biggest fanatic of a particular genre. With June kicking off the summer concert season and Bonnaroo just a few days away, what better theme to launch the Ultimate Fan series then the “Ultimate Festival Fan!”

Here’s how it works. If you think you’re the Ultimate Festival Fan, head over to our Facebook page and submit a photo and/or short story that demonstrates you are the ultimate fan. This doesn’t mean that you visited Coachella once with your parents. This means that you’ve crisscrossed the country, waited in 10-hour parking lines, slept in tents, bartered for water, and know the organizers at Outside Lands and Sasquatch on a first name basis. At the end of the month, we’ll chose the top 10 finalists and put their stories/photos up for vote. The crowd will then pick the ultimate fan who will receive a $500 StubHub gift certificate. Not bad, huh!

Each month we’ll spotlight a new category so if you’ve never braved the dust storms of Coachella, don’t worry, we’ll have another option to enter in July. Make sure to check out our Facebook page for more details. Good luck!

(Source: tumblr.com)