Bhubaneswar: Even the ‘genie’ has its limits. Such was the demand on it Tuesday that it beat a hasty retreat after making just a brief appearance; it returned, but only to say sorry, much to the chagrin of many who were wishing to witness the opening ceremony of Odisha Men’s hockey World Cup at Kalinga Stadium here November 28 and the Barabati Stadium at Cuttack the day after.
Soon after it went live at 12 pm to sell tickets for the opening ceremony, ticketgenie.in crashed. However, a few minutes later the website made an online queue system, but only to say ‘SOLD OUT’ at the end.
The first page responded in time and showed two options– ‘Book Tickets For Bhubaneswar: November 27’ and ‘Book Tickets For Cuttack: November 28’ but when people clicked on either of the two options, the web page crashed and said, “This site can’t be reached. ticketgenie.in is taking too long to respond.”
As per sources, around 80,000 users logged into the website at 12 pm, which the server could not handle and consequently the web page crashed.
The quick sale of the tickets can be attributed to the fact that the power-duo, Shah Rukh Khan and AR Rahman, is visiting Bhubaneswar to grace the opening ceremony of the World Cup.
Later, some fans reported that the website showed the following message, “You are in line for OPENING CEREMONY – ODISHA HOCKEY MENS WORLD CUP BHUBANESWAR 2018. When it is your turn, you will have 10 minutes to enter the website.”
Meanwhile, Hockey India tweeted, “Your overwhelming response to purchase online tickets for the Opening Ceremony & the World Cup celebration events of the OHMWC Bhubaneswar 2018 from http://www.ticketgenie.in has led to the slowing down of the website. However, there’s good news in store as the website will be restored shortly and you can continue to purchase your online tickets.”
However, after a couple of hours when the users went back to the website it showed a ‘SOLD OUT’ message for the tickets.
“Hockey India is only responsible for the sale of the Hockey World Cup tickets and we have no role in the sale of the opening ceremony tickets. We will take up the matter with Hockey India officials”, said State Sports & Youth Affairs joint secretary, Manoj Padhi.
Sunday, Hockey India announced on its website, “In view of public demand, the ticket sales for both the events will be live on http://ticketgenie.in/event/hwc-opening-ceremony from 20th November 2018 at 12:00 noon IST.”
CEO of Hockey India Elena Norman yesterday said, “All the tickets will be available for online purchase from tomorrow noon and there will be no sale at the counters. There are around 12,000 seats for Kalinga Stadium November 27 and 30,000 seats for Barabati Stadium November 28.”