Summer is just a beautiful time in London. Everything seems to be alive with an energy and enthusiasm which seems to be reserved for these short 2 months.
Wimbledon is one of those things, where the best is reserved for the London Summer. The ballot tickets are notoriously hard to get, with the ballot closing a year in advance, and millions applying for tickets.
But the unique thing about Wimbledon is that there are a portion of tickets are sold on the day of the play, reserved for people who queue for them. This happens for all the two weeks, with some exceptions. So let’s get into what this is and what we did.
What did we do?
We, my amazing wife and I, decided we will go camp to watch Wimbledon this year. We had tickets from the ballot last year, but couldnt go. So this year, despite not getting ballot tickets, we were determined to watch Wimbledon.
It would be her first time at the Championships, as I have done camping once before in 2019, when I got to watch Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal play on the Centre Court in R16.
So we ordered our tent, and prepared our checklist for the two nights of camping we were preparing to do. We wanted to watch the Centre Court games on the Sunday, 6th July, when Alcaraz and Sabalenka were expected to play. So we left on Friday afternoon, finishing work early.
We got down at the Southfields station, which is a short 7-8 min walk from The Queue. We reached the queue for overnight camping and put down our stuff before the Steward would come and give our queue number for Saturday. The queue kept getting longer, as the minutes progressed, and after a couple of hours, were given our Queue Card with our numbers.
As we waited, we had an ice cream!
With this in hand and our position in the queue confirmed, we were given a spot to pitch our tent that was going to be our home for the night. So we got to work, and were able to assemble our fairly simple tent with no difficulty. Even though we were doing it for the first time.
Once we had the tent and our queue cards, all that is left to do now is to have more fun. Queuing, to all those who are unfamiliar, seems to be an onerous and painful task of standing in one line for hours doing nothing while you wait to buy tickets.
But it is far far away from reality.
It is just a massive picnic party all day long. You are eating, resting, listening to music, napping, reading, playing, chatting with people around, and everyone is having fun and enjoying the experience. So its really not a mundane, usual queue experience that people sometimes expect.
We got our portable speakers, our picnic blanket and our snacks out. We also had got our books along to catch up on our reading. So we had fair amount of things to get through, and plenty to keep us occupied.
The day passed us by quickly, and we ordered some Chinese food on Uber Eats, which was an absolutely amazing decision.
Because there are so many options to eat around the park and with the delivery apps you have even more options to choose from, you are not limited to the food truck options at the park. Which are also pretty good, but after a day, you do want some variety!
The toilets and shower are often a common question asked to those who camp.
There are toilets on the Queue grounds, which are the best public toilets I have ever seen, very clean and hygienic, despite thousands of people using them through the day. They do get busy during peak hours, which is early morning and night, but otherwise are fairly accessible through the day.
For showers, there are no facilities provided. So people get creative. We rented an electric bike (there was massive Lime and Human Forest station on the grounds) and biked to our gym which was 10 min away and showered there.
Otherwise, there are couple of gym facilities which charge per visit for people who are looking to take a quick shower.
Else, some people are okay without showering for a day. Whatever works for you.
The next day, Saturday, at 5 AM the stewards come and start waking everyone up.
For people who want to go into the Wimbledon grounds on Saturday, they must pack their belongings and store them in a facility that is provided for a small 5GBP fee.
And then lineup according to their queue numbers before being let in through the ticketing village.
Since we wanted to stay for another night, so we are ahead in the queue for Sunday matches, we were asked to wait, before being handed our Queue cards for Sunday.
Once all the people for Saturday left, the stewards organised all the people who were now queueing for Sunday into the order based on the number from the previous day.
We were then given a new spot to pitch our tent, and that was going to be our new home for Saturday night.
We managed to find a mattress that someone else had left behind, as people often do here, and that made our tent more comfortable. This mattress does fit inside the tent, in case you were wondering.
On Saturday, we had some other friends who were queueing for the grounds pass. They had come in at 4 AM as were around 6,000 in the queue. So we met them and played some games, and chatted about how amazing Wimbledon really is.
Once they left at around 12PM, we napped, and then later I went to the gym to get a workout done, and also to shower.
Around 2 PM the stewards came and gave our queue cards for Sunday.
Our position ensured we will get centre court tickets, and would possibly get front row seats, near the player entrance.
We ordered some pizzas for a late lunch and then napped.
In the evening we went for short walk around the grounds, and read our books, went to a cafe to charge our phones and get some coffee.
After another round of Chinese food for dinner, we were ready to sleep and to be up early on Sunday.
As usual, the stewards were there to wake everyone up around 5. We woke up a bit sooner, so we can get ahead in the toilets, which was smart thing to do.
Once we packed our stuff and stored it away, we queued based on our numbers, which were verified at multiple times by the stewards.
Since the grounds open at 10 AM, there was a still lot of waiting to do. So we just ate a bit of snacks and chatted with people around.
A lot of people around us have been queuing every year, and each year they seem to love it more!
After a slow moving line we were ushered into the ticket area, which then led to the Ticketing Village which was nothing more than holding pen for all the people, which had food, coffee, and some brand activation by the sponsors.
All fun stuff, but this is hardest part, waiting for the grounds to open.
We finally entered the grounds, and walked around all the courts, saw The Hill, watched a couple of games that were going on, before the games on centre court started.
It was really nice out, so we just sat on our picnic blanket and ate our snacks and napped a little.
Aryna Sabalenka! - The current World # 1
Carlos Alcaraz - The current world number 2
We had really good seats, which is the benefit of queuing for tickets.
Two really good games, and really good fun and we had gotten all our money’s worth! Was a great way to spend a weekend, and would definitely do this again!
Here are some facts and details about the queue.
What do we queue for?
There are two kinds of tickets that people in queue can buy:
- Show court tickets:
- There are 3 show courts- Centre Court, Court No. 1, and Court No. 2. 500 tickets each day for each court are reserved for people who queue. This until the quarterfinals. For Semi-Finals and Finals this is not available. The tickets give access to one of show courts, all the other courts from Court # 3 onwards, and the Wimbledon grounds, which has lots things to do and see, like the museum, Henman Hill, and other fan interactions and brand activations.
- Grounds Passes
- “Thousands” are given every day, until they Wimbledon team deems its sold out. They are available for 30GBP in the first week, and later for 20 GBP as there is less tennis to witness on the ground as the tournament progresses. This gives access to everything except the show courts.
The Queue
Since the show court tickets are fewer, people queue for them for overnight. People bring in their tents, food, games, and spend a full day (sometimes 2 days) and night (2 nights) of picnic, queuing for tickets to watch Wimbledon. The grounds passes can often be obtained on the same day, but every year the queue is longer, and people are arriving sooner, and I think eventually this will also become an overnight thing, as the popularity of the sport and Wimbledon increases.
This massive park right next to the Wimbledon grounds, which is the Southfields Park, but also known as “The Queue” is home to where all the people come to, well, queue. For all the 2 weeks of Wimbledon, a team of stewards and support staff manage the park so that queue runs in an orderly fashion.
There are toilets which are absolutely the best public toilets I have ever used - very clean and hygienic despite thousands using it everyday.
There are a few food trucks as well, where you can buy pizza, burgers, coffee etc. But you can step out of the grounds and there are lots of places to eat, drink with coffee shops, cafes, grocery stores all around to suit every budget.
You can also do food delivery to the the ground entrance as well, and you have now increased the convenience further.
There are two types of queues, one is overnight, where people are pitching tents. (you dont have to get a tent, but is advisable as there is always some chances of rain, and it can get a bit cold).
The other queue is for grounds passes only, and that is for the that particular day.
As soon as you arrive at the grounds you need to look for the flag for the queue you want to join. Each queue is marked by a flag. The green flag with a Q on it, is for overnight queuers, and the purple flag with a Q on it, is for same day grounds passes.
When you join the queue, the stewards will shortly give you a Queue card, which will have a number on it. This is your position on the queue, and this cannot be transferred to other people, or be collected for them on their behalf. It is given to people who are present. And then you wait. If you are queuing overnight, you are given a spot where you can pitch your tent, as the queue is static until the next day.
In the morning around 5 AM, the stewards would wake all the overnight campers, and ask them stow their luggage in the storage facility, before they start moving the queue to the ticketing area. With a few hours before the queue moves to the tickets, people have their coffees as they pack their stuff up, and get in queue.
Some people, who want to queue another night, for even better tickets for the following day, step aside, and pitch their tent once people for that day have moved ahead for ticketing.
For the same day grounds pass queue, the waiting time is usually hours, so people get their picnic blankets, snacks and games, to pass time while their turn comes.
Once your turn comes, you are then moved to the “ticketing village” where you buy the tickets that you queued for.
The Wimbledon grounds open at 10 AM, with the first game being played around 11 AM. So once you are in, you can spend the day watching tennis, eating, drinking and picnic-ing and just one of the most fun experiences London Summer has to offer.
