Features
Another False Start For TM
Organisers of next year’s Rugby World Cup in England have been forced to delay the event’s ticket onsale because Ticketmaster says it needs more time to prepare.
Organisers delayed putting 500,000 tickets on sale May 16, days after the sale of tickets for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games was halted after huge demand stalled Ticketmaster’s system.
The rugby tickets were to go on sale to the UK’s rugby clubs on a first-come, first-served basis. Ticketmaster is said to need another couple of weeks to get the glitches out of the system.
The Rugby World Cup and the Commonwealth Games had appointed the world’s biggest ticket-seller as its official distributor. Ticketmaster also experienced glitches during last year’s Olympic Games in London.
The onsale for the rugby competition was delayed when Ticketmaster was reportedly unable to guarantee there would be no repeat of the problems that on May 13 stopped the sale of this year’s Commonwealth Games.
“This is a sensible and prudent decision and we all want the best possible ticketing experience for rugby fans so if the system needs a bit more testing – and the clubs have a bit more time to register their members – then we believe that is the right thing to do,” a spokeswoman for the rugby competition organisers told the Daily Telegraph.
A Ticketmaster statement said: “Our priority is ensuring the experience of securing tickets for the Rugby World Cup is a positive one for fans. The decision to reschedule the Rugby World Cup sale underlines that priority.”
The rugby tickets are expected to go on sale to the clubs May 29 to July 2. Another 1 million rugby tickets are scheduled to go on sale to the public Sept. 12-29. The new date for the sale of the 100,000 tickets for the Commonwealth Games, which went on sale May 12 but stopped the following day, is expected to be announced within the next couple of days.
In other Ticketmaster news, the Advertising Standards Authority has rejected a complaint against Ticketmaster over secondary ticket promotion.
The company was accused of misleading customers by saying it had tickets for The Cure‘s sow at
Ticketmaster pointed out that it had a certain allocation of all the primary tickets on offer for the show, with various other outlets also selling them, and that demand meant 90 percent of tickets were gone within 15 minutes of being released.
The ASA said it was happy that The Cure tickets available on Get Me In were being offered by various resellers, and not Ticketmaster itself.