"Paciolan," online ticket provider for the Colorado Rockies, had their system crash as people bombarded the site with requests.
In the first hour-and-a-half of sales, the site received 8.5 million visits for tickets for the World Series game at Coors Field.
Colorado Rockies spokesman Jay Alves said, "They are amazed and overwhelmed at what happened here this morning." At this time the company isn't aware of what caused the problem. Paciolan spokesman Shaw Taylor said it's possible there was a "large-scale denial-of-service attack.
The company sold 25 percent of all live event tickets in the U.S. according to their web site. They provide tickets for over 700 college and professional sports teams, along with other live events.
While fingers were being pointed at Paciolan specifically, Major League Baseball has asserted they were using their servers so there shouldn't be a problem. What they didn't say was the request for tickets would in reality be sent to servers hosted by evenue.net in California, which is owned by Paciolan.
Some has suggested part of the problem could be the "bots" used by ticket scalpers.
Either way, the online ticket industry has been under fire recently for lack of controls in serving fans of live events. The Hannah Montana tour by Miley Cyrus is a case in point, where ticket scalpers dominated the sales and a large number of actual fans couldn't get tickets, or had to buy them at outrageous prices.
Concerning the technical aspects of it, Drew Curtis who owns the news aggregating site Fark.com, said: "These idiots always have these consultants that tell them, 'Sure, the server can handle the traffic. In reality, that only works over the course of a day. If a zillion people hit the damn thing all at once, it goes boom. Think CNN on 9/11." His rant was in reference to attempting to get tickets for his dad who lives in Colorado.
Ticket sites are going to have to improve quickly. They don't have the right things in place to handle large venues at this time; either technically or to serve true fans trying to simply purchase tickets.
This is turning into a nightmare as live event planners continue to bring more of their business online. They have to do better than this.
» Online Ticket Provider "Paciolan" and Have as Many Backups as you Need from ManagersRealm
No matter what we're doing in our businesses, when we offer special incentives, discounts or serve unique circumstances, we must have plans in place to handle higher than expected surges in customers and buying. Paciolan and Major League Baseball f... [Read More]
Tracked on: October 22, 2007 5:50 PM | Permalink to Trackback