South Africa Rugby has apologised after the Cape Town Sevens’ new ticketing system left many fans frustrated and ticketless.
The governing body responded to the overwhelming demand for the event by developing a new ticketing system that was specifically created to make it simpler for supporters to purchase passes.
Andy Colquhoun, a spokesperson for SA Rugby, said: “We thought it would be a quick and clean process. Tickets last year were sold out in 44 minutes and we had only 7,000 purchases last year and tickets were falling into the hands of re-sellers and we were concerned that unless you were really quick online, you were excluded.”
The new system left fans, who had reportedly queued for hours at kiosks or missed out online for not being quick enough, angry and let down by the governing body.
According to South African radio station 702, many fans were forced to cancel their accommodation and travel arrangements after failing to grab tickets through SA Rugby’s new ticketing system.
Colquhoun added: “We have had a major success this year where we have actually had 16,000 people able to buy tickets so far, so we have double the number of people who have had access to buying tickets which is a good thing.
“But it hasn’t worked well and with our service provider, we have been looking into that.”
The Cape Town Sevens is an annual tournament and will this year take place on December 8-9.
Image: Henning Schlottmann
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