Beijing Olympic ticket system crashes under massive demand
BEIJING (AFP) — Massive demand caused the Beijing Olympics ticketing system to crash as a second phase of sales for people living in China got under way, officials said Tuesday.
More than 200,000 Internet ticket applications were submitted each minute during the first hour of sales, jamming the site, the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) said in a statement.
The committee's website received eight million hits in the first hour alone, while its phone bank was swamped by more than two million calls, the statement said.
"The website and phone lines are jammed. Even I can't get through by phone to the ticketing centre," Wang Yue, a BOCOG spokeswoman, told AFP.
With its systems freezing up, just 9,000 out of the roughly 1.8 million tickets on offer were sold, BOCOG said, as it pleaded for patience.
"The BOCOG Ticketing Center advises ticket buyers to be patient and reminds online buyers to refrain from clicking on the same page repeatedly, which might add to the present traffic jam online," the statement said.
Tickets were being sold on a first-come, first-served basis through the website, via phone orders or at Bank of China branches nationwide.
But prospective buyers encountered disappointment at banks as well.
"We can't process any orders here either. The whole system is down," a bank employee at one Beijing branch told AFP. "I don't think you can buy any tickets in any way right now."
The official Xinhua news agency quoted the head of the Bank of China's Olympic affairs department, Xu Chen, as saying he was shocked by the huge demand.
"We had tested the booking system several times, but the number of buyers has been out of our expectations," Xu said.
Just over 1.8 million tickets went on sale Tuesday to people living in China, following a hugely popular initial round in June that sold 1.6 million.
China will eventually sell a total of seven million tickets over three phases, with about 75 percent going to residents of China and the rest to overseas buyers.
Overseas sales begin in April.
The most popular ticket in the first round was for the August 8 opening ceremony, with just 4.7 percent of those who applied actually landing one. Only 15 percent of those applying for the closing ceremony were successful.
A Games official said Tuesday hope was also fading for buyers seeking tickets to other popular sports such as basketball, swimming, gymnastics, badminton, and table tennis.
"With these events, I'm afraid it may be too late," BOCOG's head of ticketing, Rong Jun, told state television.
BOCOG provided no estimates on when the ticket systems would be stabilised, with the Internet site still not usable on Tuesday evening.
