Grand Prix ticket sales delayed as Ticketmaster points to global third-party outage
Written by admin on October 8, 2024
The sale of tickets to Melbourne’s Formula 1 Grand Prix has been delayed a full day just minutes after tickets were meant to go on sale.
Tickets for the March event were set to be released for purchase at 12pm on Tuesday, however Ticketmaster announced at 12.07pm on social media the sale had been delayed due to a “global third-party outage”.
“Due to a global third-party outage, the FORMULA 1 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX general public onsale will be delayed until tomorrow Wednesday 9 October 12pm (AEDT),” the statement, posted to X, read.
“We apologise for the inconvenience.”
Fans eager to snatch up tickets were quick to express their anger at the situation.
“You just figured this out at 12.10pm? Not 11am when you said waiting room opened? Just happy to leave people frustrated for 70 minutes?” one person wrote underneath the statement on X.
“Might have been handy to know before we wasted our time trying to get tickets!” another wrote.
A Ticketmaster spokesperson said the outage has been resolved, with “all systems currently working as expected”.
“Prior to today’s FORMULA 1 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2025 general public onsale, we were made aware of an issue with a global third-party web infrastructure provider that affected our queue management systems,” the spokesperson said.
“This outage would have hindered our ability to provide a smooth onsale for fans, so therefore the decision was made to postpone the general public sale until tomorrow Wednesday 9 October 12pm (AEDT).
“This outage has since been resolved and all systems are currently working as expected. We thank fans for their patience during this time.”
The event, held between March 13 and 16 in Melbourne, has left punters slapped with a $20 ticket increase for the cheapest available ticket compared to last year, bringing the cost up to $169.
However, Australian Grand Prix chief executive officer Travis Auld said the change comes as the cost of hosting the event itself is “increasing”.
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“What we’ve tried to do year-on-year is limit the increase of the base price but the realities are the cost of holding a Formula One event is increasing,” Auld said.
“We are seeing unprecedented demand and we have got to try and balance that with keeping the event as accessible as possible and we’ve had a lot of conversations around that.”
NewsWire has contacted Ticketmaster for comment.
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