Technical glitch hits Olympic ticket website
Last Updated: Saturday, November 7, 2009 | 5:06 PM ET
CBC News
Technical difficulties hit the Olympic ticket website Saturday morning, forcing organizers to postpone release of the last wave of tickets until Nov. 14.
In a release, the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee said the problems prevented the planned sale of 100,000 tickets that were to go on the block at 10 a.m. PT.
Ticket buyers trying to log onto the website could only get a Google message saying the link appeared to be broken.
Frustrated potential buyers called CBC News on Saturday morning, saying the site was slow and unpredictable. Others said they were unable to log on to the website altogether.
One person spent 40 minutes just trying to log on, only to be kicked off just before making a purchase.
"We are disappointed that people wanting to purchase tickets today did not receive the chance to do so — this is the first time we have had such an issue," said Caley Denton, vice-president of ticketing for VANOC.
Officials said it appears a few hundred tickets were sold, primarily through VANOC's call centre. About 100,000 more tickets for the 2010 Winter Games in February will be available Nov. 14.
The tickets were for all events in the Vancouver area, including coveted seats at the gold-medal hockey and curling matches and at the opening and closing ceremonies.
