Website ticket sales to remain, say GAA

DESPITE the difficulties experienced by some of the public in purchasing tickets for this weekend's double-headers, the GAA remains committed to selling a limited number, thought to be around 3,000, for the All-Ireland hurling semi-finals on their website.

There was a great deal of anger expressed by those who failed to buy tickets for Monday’s matches on the web because the site was not working. It was originally thought to have crashed due to the amount of traffic. However, that was not the case.

“We had to carry out some vital maintainence work on the server,” said Niamh O’Shea of Setanta.com, who manage the website for the GAA.

“The timing of the work was unfortunate from everyone’s point of view, but there was nothing we could do about it. The maintainence work was essential and the site was only offline for a couple of hours. We had to ensure the utmost security for our customers on the site, we had to ensure there was a secure environment for buying tickets, that was why it was vital the site was offline for a short time.”

When the site came back online, tickets for Monday’s double bill sold out in 40 minutes while tickets for Sunday’s set of games remained on sale last night. The website receives only a small allocation, somewhere in the region of 3,000 tickets, and the attractive double-billing ensured they would be snapped up quickly.

“I know some people think it was a traffic issue, but it wasn’t,” Niamh O’Shea said. “The website is more than capable of handling the number of hits we received on Wednesday. In fact, for the Kerry-Dublin games last year, we would have received double the hits we got for Monday’s game and we didn’t experience any problems with the site, then.”

Although, the number of hits the site received on Wednesday is yet to be quantified, it was the busiest day it has experienced since tickets for the Kerry/Dublin quarter-final went on sale last year.

GAA PRO Danny Lynch says he understands the anger of some people who missed out on getting tickets, but a small number of tickets will still be available for all four semi-finals. However, tickets for the All-Ireland finals remain down the conventional route of clubs and county boards.

“Since the website began selling tickets online in September 2000 (for the International Rules series that year), it has been a great success,” said Lynch. “It is a great way for the association to make tickets available to the general punter, who might have trouble getting them through a club.”

Setanta.com says this has been the most successful year for selling tickets over the net, since the concept was green lighted almost two years ago. Despite the problems experienced by many on Wednesday, Niamh O’Shea believes more and more people are going to use this medium in the future.

“The demand is always higher when the Dubs are playing, but more and more people are becoming aware that they can get tickets this way. To avoid disappointment in the future, I would advise people to check the site early and keep clicking the refresh button to ensure the site is continually updated.”