Tickets for all 17 sports at this summer's Games, as well as the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, went on sale at 10am local time on the Glasgow 2014 ticketing website, on a first-come first-served basis.

Due to the expected high demand, organisers implemented a queuing system on both the website and the Glasgow 2014 telephone hotline.

Despite this, many ticket hopefuls were left frustrated at the long wait times and crashing website, leading to Glasgow 2014 to announce late tonight that they were temporarily closing it down.

"In order to continue investigations, we will close the ticketing website for one hour from midnight tonight," said a statement from Glasgow 2014 issued at 10.40pm.

"We will provide a further update once we have completed this important assessment.

"Thank you for your continued support and patience."

Ticket hopefuls have turned to Twitter to vent their frustration at the delays to the Glasgow 2014 ticketing website and hotline ©Twitter















It followed a hugely embarrassing day for Glasgow 2014 during which they came under heavy criticism on social media.

Twitter user Personalised Music said they had been waiting for more than an hour-and-a-half when the website crashed.

"Finally logged [back] on and told waiting time is still over one hour. Frustrating!," they added.

A spokesperson for Glasgow 2014 inititally apologised for the delays blaming the "unprecedented demand" for the the long queues. 

"Today's general ticket sale has generated unprecedented demand and with this the call centre and website is understandably very busy and there are queues in place to manage this.

"We are also dealing with reports from some customers of errors within the ticket selection and purchase process.

"We would like to assure customers that we are processing ticket sales as quickly as we can and advise customers to keep trying.

"We thank everyone for their patience and apologise to those who have experienced issues."

The latest tickets prices started from £15 ($24.50/€18) for adults and £7.50 ($12.25/€9) for concessions - under-16s and over-60s.

As well as the new release of tickets, Glasgow 2014 organisers also sent out tickets to those who bought them in the first phase of sales.

Prior to the latest ticket launch, David Grevemberg, chief executive of Glasgow 2014, described his "delight" on "another exciting day on the road to the Glasgow 2014 Commonwelath Games".

He added: "We know from experience just how high the demand will be for these tickets so while we are urging everyone to get in early and take the opportunity to join us at the Games this summer, we also need to thank them in advance for their patience and continued support.

"We have always said we wanted to make Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games accessible, affordable and available to as many people as possible and we very much look forward to welcoming the world to Glasgow and Scotland, for what promises to be an outstanding festival of sport."

Those looking to buy tickets are faced with huge waiting times on the Glasgow 2014 ticketing website ©Glasgow 2014











According to some who have made it through on the phones and online, tickets are still available for the 17 sports on sale today.

The queue visitors are placed into online gives an "approximate waiting time" and asks for the page not to be refreshed.

Similar problems were seen during ticket re-sales for London 2012 where fans trying to buy tickets were able to click onto apparently available events but, after several minutes, were then told these were not available.

But as the problems continued, Glasgow 2014 were forced to issue a further apology as the problems continued. 

"Thousands of people have successfully secured Games tickets today and there have been very high levels of demand," said Gordon Arthur, chief communications officer at Glasgow 2014. 

"However we understand that many people have had a frustrating experience with queuing and transacting on the Glasgow 2014 ticketing website and with the call centre.

"Our continued focus is on resolving these issues and we thank everyone sincerely for their patience.

"The queue is now reducing and we are seeing increasing numbers of customers successfully buying tickets. 

"However, we are also aware that there are some people who are still having significant issues and have been on the website for a very long time.

"We appreciate this is an unsatisfactory experience and apologise for the inconvenience caused.

"Please be assured that all our energies and efforts are focused on ensuring people can purchase tickets as quickly as possible and we will provide further updates via our website, twitter and facebook accounts as soon as we have them."

But, as the complaints continued to mount, Glasgow 2014 decided to close it down while they tried to find a solution. 

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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