Hull’s City of Culture chief executive says the website glitches that marred a series of ticket sales for major events have now been resolved.
TickTechNews reported in November that hundreds of people had been unable to buy tickets for a New Year’s Day firework display due to technical issues with the site. Many complained they were unable to book tickets after being timed out of the online queuing system. The site also crashed ahead of sales for an acrobatic performance in June.
City of Culture chief executive Martin Green told a council scrutiny committee that sheer demand caused the crash, but that recent improvements mean similar issues will not be repeated.
“Most of the problems were caused by the sheer weight of demand for tickets. I believe those problems are now fixed,” said Green, according to the Hull Daily Mail newspaper.
“I’m told we could have sold the equivalent of Glastonbury twice over for what is actually only a free fireworks show, although it’s going to be a very good fireworks show.
“We’ve been working night and day to get it right and I have a fair level of confidence we are there.”
Green said some of the site’s issues related to the small amount of time available for development, as well as unexpectedly high demand. The scale of the project was also expanded to allow for the sale of tickets on behalf of City of Culture partners and other local venues.
“We had two choices when we started looking at having a digital platform for 2017,” Green said. “We could have had something just for those 365 days or we could look at something as a legacy project.
“Clearly, we chose the second one and that meant trying to develop something in a relatively short period of time with all the technological problems that tend to go with that.
“The cloud-based technology we are using allows us to add venues, share data and, most importantly, it tells us who is not coming.
“It’s complicated stuff, especially when you are trying to do it in a relatively short period of time and then for a mass ticketing event.
“It’s also about the simple desire of people to get involved. It’s fair to say we have been astonished by the response.”
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