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If you were one of the unlucky thousands blocked from attending from attending President Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony despite holding, the group in charge offers an apology.
It’s likely to be little consolation to those who, expecting a front row seat to history, were kept from viewing the event all. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies said it will investigate what went wrong.
From their statement released this afternoon:
The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies deeply regrets that some ticket holders to the ceremonies were not able to get to their ticketed sections, primarily in the purple and blue zones. The number of tickets issued for these sections was based on historic precedent, and calculations of the number of guests that could safely be accommodated in each area.
Many of the problems appear to have been due to the unprecedented crowds, and a huge flow of unticketed people toward the U.S. Capitol and into the 3rd Street Tunnel from the National Mall, after it had reached capacity very early that morning and was closed to additional unticketed entries.
The JCCIC, U.S. Capitol Police and our federal and local partners will thoroughly examine every aspect of our planning including ticketing, screening, pedestrian flows, gate numbers and placement, to provide a foundation of lessons learned to future inaugural planners, so that they have the information they need to prevent similar problems.
We realize how important this inauguration was to so many people and the difficulties they endured to get here, so once again we deeply apologize to those guests who were not admitted.
UPDATE: Those ticketholders who were not admitted can e-mail the committee here: feedback@jccic.senate.gov
-- Amy Dominello
It’s likely to be little consolation to those who, expecting a front row seat to history, were kept from viewing the event all. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies said it will investigate what went wrong.
From their statement released this afternoon:
The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies deeply regrets that some ticket holders to the ceremonies were not able to get to their ticketed sections, primarily in the purple and blue zones. The number of tickets issued for these sections was based on historic precedent, and calculations of the number of guests that could safely be accommodated in each area.
Many of the problems appear to have been due to the unprecedented crowds, and a huge flow of unticketed people toward the U.S. Capitol and into the 3rd Street Tunnel from the National Mall, after it had reached capacity very early that morning and was closed to additional unticketed entries.
The JCCIC, U.S. Capitol Police and our federal and local partners will thoroughly examine every aspect of our planning including ticketing, screening, pedestrian flows, gate numbers and placement, to provide a foundation of lessons learned to future inaugural planners, so that they have the information they need to prevent similar problems.
We realize how important this inauguration was to so many people and the difficulties they endured to get here, so once again we deeply apologize to those guests who were not admitted.
UPDATE: Those ticketholders who were not admitted can e-mail the committee here: feedback@jccic.senate.gov
-- Amy Dominello