IT Business
London 2012 ticket website struggles with demand
Olympics organisers say systems did not crash
By Anh Nguyen | Computerworld UK | Published 10:34, 24 June 11
Users of the London 2012 Olympic website have faced problems buying tickets from the second chance sale this morning due to high demand.
People who missed out on tickets in the initial ballot are hoping to buy some in the latest round of sales, when around 2.3 million tickets will be on sale for 10 days on a first-come, first-served basis.
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Tickets were available from 6am, but shortly after opening, the website, powered by Ticketmaster, failed to load for some users, who were faced with the following message: “We are experiencing high demand. You will be automatically directed to the page requested as soon as it becomes available. Thank you for your patience.”
However, a spokesperson for London 2012 maintained that the website did not crash. “We have had huge demand for the site. The website did continue to transact. The page was loading slowly but nothing was actually down.”
The spokesperson added: “It’s a lot quicker now.”
Michael Allen, Director of IT Service Management at Compuware said, “The organisers no doubt ran tests to check the site could handle the traffic. It did slow down and that did frustrate a lot of visitors but it didn’t crash – as was the case earlier in the week with the French ticketing site. That should be applauded.”
The London 2012 Olympic ticketing system has faced controversy after 1.2 million people failed to get any tickets in the first round, which started in March. The website crashed offline on on 26 April, after people rushed to buy tickets during the final hours before the deadline.
