FANS are reporting problems buying seats for Saturday’s blockbuster preliminary final at the MCG as thousands flood the Ticketek website this morning.
Tickets have just gone on sale for club members for the Richmond v Greater Western Sydney match with some camping out overnight to snap up precious seats.
Fans have taken to Twitter to express frustration, but the agency has denied the site crashed at any point this morning and is urging fans to be patient.
The agency says it deploys a queuing system to ensure fair access to tickets, which are being snapped up at a rate of 1200 tickets per minute.
But fans are frustrated.
“Another day of people trying to buy finals tickets another day of ticketek crashing, gorgeous,” tweeted one fan.
Others like James Rouel had better luck.
“Had tickets purchased and in my email by 9.03, not sure what all the stress people have over Ticketek,” he tweeted.
Ticketek managing director Cameron Hoy said the website had performed well.
“This morning’s on sale for the Richmond v GWS preliminary final saw thousands of fans secure tickets at a rate of over 1200 tickets per minute from 9am,” he said.
“The Ticketek website performed seamlessly and any assertion that our website crashed is simply baseless and inaccurate.
“As with any major on sale Ticketek deploys a queuing system to ensure fair access to tickets.
“Right throughout this morning’s on sale Ticketek social media response team was engaging directly with fans in real time, encouraging them to be patient, hold their place in the queue and that our systems were operating normally.
“Contrary to the claims by a few fans on social media, the on sale delivered a great experience for the vast majority of fans.”
Richmond has more than 72,000 members.
The capacity of the MCG is just over 100,000.
SECOND PRELIMINARY FINALWHAT: Richmond v GWS
WHERE: MCG
WHEN: Saturday September 23, 4.45pm
TICKETS ON SALE:
Competing Club Members
Monday September 18, 9am-1pm
General Public
Monday September 18, 2pm
AFL Members
Tuesday September 19, 9am
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/teams/richmond/richmond-fans-dare-to-dream-with-90000-expected-to-descend-on-mcg-for-gws-clash/news-story/22425c97effa947a41fa2940145fa0e5