Britain. Home to the world's largest commercial security printer but not, it seems, any printers capable of printing the tickets for London 2012. How on earth did that happen?
Oh dear, oh dear. News that the Olympic tickets will be printed by American company Weldon, Williams & Lick is a PR disaster for London 2012 organiser LOCOG. When it comes to promo items for the upcoming games that could best be described as 'plastic tat', I can grudgingly accept that this sort of thing will inevitably be sourced from the Far East. But high-value and high-profile items such as the tickets - THE BLOODY TICKETS - are a different matter altogether.
These pieces of paper will have the status of some sort of Willy Wonka-esque item given the huge number of people, myself included, who were unsuccessful in applying for them. And this most prestigious of contracts has gone abroad. *palms forehead*
I'm trying to get hold of the tender document to see precisely what LOCOG's requirements were. No doubt they were complex, but then that's what this sort of security printing is all about.
I have seen a rather disingenuous comment from someone saying they could have suggested 'hundreds' of printing companies who could have done this job. Really? Don't think so. It is a pretty select list. And recent years have been a bit complicated for companies like BemroseBooth, who one might have considered a nailed-on potential supplier at one time, since the glory days when they were printing tickets for the World Cup.
But still, there are a few.
If Seb Coe had written in to my Help Line looking for potential suppliers for this job, my answer would have included the following:
- De La Rue (I know they don't list tickets among their security printing specialties, but I'm sure they would be more than capable of sorting this out as the whole thing sounds like a managed service requirement anyway).
- Kalamazoo
- 3M Security Printing & Systems
- BemroseBooth/Paragon
- Mail Solutions
- Integrity Print
- Secure & Confidential Documents
- CFH
- TALL Group
Per my De La Rue
comment, some of these suppliers have ticketing expertise and some don't. But
they do all have security printing know-how so it could even have been possible
for some sort of consortium approach. And per all my Help Line attempts, no doubt I have missed someone off.
I'm trying to pin the tail on the fail here. A failure by LOCOG in setting the spec? A failure to see beyond price alone? Or a failure by 'UK Security Print plc' to jump on this particular Olympic opportunity with a suitable solution?
