| Daily news, 02 Nov 2007 |
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BEIJING – The sale of the second batch of Olympic tickets was suspended after the booking system collapsed under overwhelming demand on Tuesday, the first day tickets became available, a report on the CNTA website said.
The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) said Tuesday night in a statement that they had decided to temporarily halt domestic ticket sales to improve the technical plan and will announce new ticketing information on November 5.
The first-come-first-serve scheme had 1.85 million tickets on sale through the booking website, a hotline and designated branches of Bank of China.
But demand was much higher than organizers anticipated: According to the Beijing Olympic Ticketing Center, the official ticketing website (www.tickets.beijing2008.cn) saw 8 million hits in the first hour starting 9 a.m., while the ticketing hotline received 3.8 million calls.
Only some 9,000 tickets were sold in two hours; and the ticketing center confirmed that successful orders would be valid. |
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