UPDATE: Tickets are now back on sale.
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Today was not a good day for the Splendour in the Grass ticketing system.
Soon after tickets went on sale at 9am this morning, ticketing site
Moshtix near ground to a halt. To add to fans frustrations, it was soon discovered that a technical difficulty with Westpac was preventing customers of that institution (and their affiliates) from making transactions.
Traditionally, Splendour has sold out in a matter of hours. Due to the technical errors (or—as some were suggesting—was it the $401-$500+ price tag?), today was not the case.
This evening, organisers have announced they will suspend ticket sales at 9pm tonight in order to review the ticketing system. Ticket sales will be relaunched Friday morning (6th May) in an effort to allow today's shut-out cardholders access to remaining tickets.
Event Producers, Jessica Ducrou and Paul Piticco said in a press release:
“We have decided to suspend all ticket sales at 9pm tonight so that all systems can be triple checked before relaunching tomorrow morning at 9am. We understand how frustrating it was for so many people this morning. We did expect a ticket rush but none of us expected what happened this morning and unfortunately it was all beyond our control. We were very concerned that all those people who hold Westpac and affiliated cards were disadvantaged today as well and that has contributed to this decision.”
Potential ticket buyers were irate today, complaining that tickets were unable to be purchased on the moshtix site. However, it was soon revealed that purchases via iPhone were highly successful. Apple would be tickled.
From the press release:
TICKET SALES TO BE SUSPENDED AT 9PM TONIGHT
The organisers of the annual SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS event would like to advise that all ticket sales for the event will suspended tonight at 9pm AEST and will be RELAUNCHED at 9am Friday 6 May AEST.
Numerous external technical issues, with both Westpac and the festival’s ticket outlet Moshtix, resulted in many people being unable to purchase tickets to the event for a number of hours after they went on sale this morning.
For the duration of the morning Westpac Credit and Debit cards and Westpac affiliated cards issued by Citibank, Suncorp, St George, Heritage Building Society, Cashcard and Jetstar were out of service due to a fault at a Westpac data centre. Thousands of people were affected and the organisers of Splendour felt that taking this step would give those card holders who were affected by this bank glitch a fair chance to secure tickets.
An allocation of both event-camping and event-only tickets will be on sale the morning of Friday 6th May.
Stay tuned for more.