NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – Ten million fans seeking just 1000 tickets for the final crashed a World Cup website in just 20 minutes, the official ticket agency revealed today.
Tournament organisers were forced to scrap plans to sell the tickets on the web after the meltdown and organise a ballot system instead.
Monday’s problems launched a huge online backlash by fans seeking the precious tickets for the April 2 final in Mumbai but the KyaZoonga agency said the demand had taken everyone by surprise.
“There was a limited supply of tickets and the demand was unprecedented. The website got completely overloaded,” KyaZoonga chief executive officer Neetu Bhatia told Reuters by phone today.
“To give you a perspective, Facebook gets 14 million visits a day and we got 10 million in the first 20 minutes. It just kept coming.
“While we were prepared obviously for a surge, everyone tried to hit at the same time because we had given them a time. Any system has a certain capacity and no matter how much you expand, if traffic keeps coming, systems get overloaded.”
Of the 33,000 seats at the Wankhede Stadium for the final, only around 4000 are available to the public while the rest are distributed among the International Cricket Council and clubs affiliated to the Mumbai Cricket Association.
Bhatia said the ballot system would allow the public a wider window to apply for tickets.
“We are working on an alternative system which will give people a lot more time. It will be a ballot system. Ballot is run in Wimbledon and other grand slam (tennis) tournaments and the Olympics.”
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