Adele fans around the country are demanding answers after being left empty-handed by Ticketek and Ticketmaster websites which buckled under "phenomenal" demand.
Customers trying to secure tickets to the 10-time Grammy winner's first Australian tour on Monday morning reported being left hanging by engaged customer service lines and websites which continually crashed.
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Entertainment news highlights
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The British singer's Melbourne show sold-out in just over 30 minutes on Monday morning, at the rate of around 2000 tickets per minute. A second show was announced by the singer to meet "phenomenal demand" one hour later.
But aggrieved fans still struggled to secure seats, venting their disappointment and frustration after the ticketing agencies' websites and phone lines failed to keep up with demand.
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One woman on Facebook said she had called Ticketmaster's disabled access line more than 50 times with no response.
People who called the customer service line reported getting a engaged tone.
Ticketek didn't fare any better. As fans in Sydney and Adelaide poured onto the website at midday to secure seats, the Ticketek website crashed with a server error message.
At 12.30pm, fans said they were still getting 403 error messages.
One Newcastle fan expressed her dismay on Ticketek's Facebook: "21 minutes to finally get to the ticket purchase page only to get kicked off!"
Others reported being kicked-out of the Ticketmaster website after securing tickets and entering their credit card information, essentially being forced back to the end of the queue.
Both agencies' Facebook pages have been flooded with desperate messages from anxious fans who said they'd purchased tickets only to have the website fail them afterward.
"I had two tickets in my cart, credit card details were entered but there was no 'process payment' button and therefore no way for me to actually purchase these tickets," wrote one Melbourne fan. "After 30 minutes of continually refreshing my browser this is bullshit."
The websites have enforced a strict time limit on fans, giving them just 2 minutes and 30 seconds on each page to select seats and enter their payment details.
Australians wanting to see the 28-year-old Brit on her first local tour grew tired of being told to "sit tight" and wait in the virtual queue.
A Ticketmaster spokeswoman maintained their website did not crash amid an "all-time high number of fans in queue".
"Our sophisticated technology helped to ensure that the tickets we sold ended up in the hands of real fans," she said.
Less than an hour after tickets went on sale to the general public, scalped tickets began flooding eBay.
A ticket in the Sydney A Reserve section was selling for $1079. In Melbourne that price was $999, in Perth $749 and in Brisbane $649. One scalper wanted $1600 for two A Reserve seats at the Melbourne show.
Some people aid it was unfair they couldn't purchase tickets while scalpers had purchased the best seats in the house.
"Ticketek, you are an absolute disgrace," a fan wrote on Facebook. "System crashes for those of us who genuinely want tickets but the scalpers are able to get tickets and are now selling them on ebay for exorbitant prices.
Apologies from the ticketing agencies on Twitter fell on deaf ears with customers demanding to know how much longer they would receive error messages.
Adele fans, thanks for your persistence! Please keep trying, plenty of great tickets still available for Sydney. Apologies for any delays!
— Ticketek Australia (@Ticketek_AU) November 21, 2016
@immy_caitlin Hi Immy, the high wait time is because of huge demand for tix. You're in a virtual queue - sit tight!
— Ticketmaster AU (@Ticketmaster_AU) November 21, 2016
More concerts announced:
Sydney (expected)
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