These photos were all taken on 4 August, when I went to the ExCel Centre in London's Docklands to watch a day of fencing. You can see the efforts made to dress the venue in the standard London 2012 palette, both inside and out. I was admonished at the start of the day for trying to take photos of the security process, but you can still see the lanes people used to get into the venue, as well as the tents used to house the scanners and the troops manning the machines.
Transport to the venue was very smooth. Getting out was more long winded as we were directed out the back of the ExCel ??? but it meant a trip to/through the London Pleasure Gardens area. (That's the bit with the gravel, food vans, crazy golf and a big screen showing the sport.) This certainly looked independent of LOCOG and as far as I'm aware was not sanctioned by Lord Coe. There were therefore opportunities to sample a wide range of foods, drinks and music, but few people were lingering ??? this despite the warm and friendly pre-recorded messages played over the PA.
The Pleasure Gardens were also the site of a less successful event, earlier this Olympic summer, when the Bloc festival crashed and burned in July. I Storified a few tweets from the morning after, with a bit more background here from the weekend and again a few days later.
(These images have a CC licence.)
