Commonwealth Games 2014: Ticket sales for Glasgow suspended

People have faced long delays after an extra 100,000 tickets went on sale this week

The sale of Commonwealth Games tickets remain suspended while problems that caused long delays for customers are resolved.

Glasgow 2014 chief executive David Grevemberg apologised "unreservedly" to people affected as the ticketing website and phone line closed at 6pm yesterday.

An extra 100,000 tickets across all 17 sports and the opening and closing ceremonies went on sale on Monday, but problems quickly developed with people facing long delays and issues with finalising transactions. Around 55,000 tickets have so far been sold, organisers said.

The site was initially closed for an hour yesterday morning to allow technicians to investigate the problem but they failed to resolve it resulting in a second day of delays and frustrations for sports fans hoping to secure tickets for the Games.

Mr Grevemberg said Ticketmaster, which operates the website, was told to close it along with the call centre set up to handle sales until the problem is fixed.

Many people, including some who got tickets, took to Twitter to express their frustrations at the system.

Pauline Lynch wrote: "You might not believe me but it took me 31 hours of queuing to secure commonwealth tickets. 31 hours."

Kelly Ross tweeted: "After 24hrs I have just managed to get opening ceremony tickets to the commonwealth games."

About 2.3 million applications were made for the initial one million tickets released last year, with athletics, aquatics and cycling proving the most popular events.

Mr Grevemberg said: "We want the purchase of Commonwealth Games tickets through the Ticketmaster system to be a positive experience for all customers and we realise this has not been the case for many.

"We thank everyone for their patience and apologise unreservedly to everyone who has been affected and inconvenienced by this disappointing situation.

"We have sold more than 55,000 tickets since we opened the ticketing website yesterday and there will still be a great range of tickets available for most sports and the ceremonies when we re-open.

"We will not allow the frustrations experienced by our customers throughout the last day and a half to continue further. We will only re-open the site once Ticketmaster is confident that the issues with the website have been resolved."

PA