Connacht fans’ fury over ticketing glitch
Problems with clinching highly sought-after tickets for Connacht’s Pro 12 semi-final play-off with Glasgow have left a sour taste in the mouth of some rugby fans – with season ticket holders missing out on enclosed seating for this Saturday’s game.
Because the semi-final is a Guinness Pro 12-run fixture, hosted by Connacht Rugby at the Sportsground, it is not included as part of the 2015/16 season ticket.
These ticket holders were offered exclusive access to presale tickets from 9am last Monday morning – but with no guarantee of a place in the stands they hold their tickets for.
Some ticket holders claimed they got just 15 minutes notice before the presale window opened.
Head of Operations at Connacht Rugby, Karl Boyle denied this and said that there had been correspondence in the week before, with at least one email going out on the Thursday.
Fans were then left battling technical issues as the ticket website crashed due to the high volume of traffic – creating queues out the door of the College Road ticket office.
It took just under two hours for the Clan Terrace and Enclosure to sell out.
“I don’t know how the Clan sold out so fast, it was next to impossible to buy online. I even got to the stage of entering my card details and it would ‘time out’ again,” said one irate fan.
While Mr Boyle recognised that some fans would be unhappy about this, he said it was something Connacht Rugby had no control over.
“We know that people would love to have been in the Clan Terrace. But at no stage could we guarantee this – there are contractual obligations across all ticketing.”
In a further email sent on Monday evening, it was stated that each season ticket holder would, in fact, have two tickets reserved for them, if they wished to purchase them during the presale period.
According to Mr Boyle, the main objective was to give every season ticket holder the opportunity to get to see the Connacht squad’s efforts to forge ahead in what has been an epic season for the provincial side.
Due to the technical issues that marred sales last Monday morning, the exclusive presale window was extended to 9am on Thursday morning.
The remaining tickets on general sale sold out in just 45 minutes – and according to Mr Boyle, the demand for tickets is a sign of the huge support for the province.
“It’s going to be an unbelievable occasion – we did have some issues and we apologise for that.
“The buying process was far from ideal but it is great to see the demand and our objective was that every season ticket holder would get to come in and support – as they have all season,” said Mr Boyle.