Singapore Grand Prix ticket system crashes due to incredible demand
Business and Law
By Theo Valich
Friday, February 15, 2008 08:24
Singapore
(Singapore) - Asia is set to receive its first city-based Grand Prix race in Formula
1 World Championship. On September 28th, F1 engines will roar
through City-state of Singapore during the night, making it the first night
race in history of F1.
However, in
order for that GP to happen, it is necessary to bring visitors to the track,
and expectations are running high. To be more precise, expectation was high
enough to crash the ticket distribution system that went online on Valentine’s
Day.
Organizers
issued a press release apologizing that the ticket distribution system, which
combines all three possible methods: online, call centers and booths - could
not cope with demand. In fact, it was quite interesting reading apologetic
statements from Singapore GP Pte Ltd (event organizer), and The OmniTicket
Network, company in charge of ticket distribution.
OmniTicket
CEO Paolo Moro issued a statement saying, “Due
to the unexpected number of simultaneous requests, the response time of the
reservation system got compromised and, for a short time, even stopped
responding."
Ticket prices
are floating from 118 to 979 USD, and at that time, it might be interesting to
take a direct flight on San Francisco-Hong Kong-Singapore (SFO-HKG-SIN) route
with the spanking new Airbus A380 (hopefully it will be running by September),
and see the first night race in the history of F1. If you want to go all decadent,
there is East Coast-Singapore Flight (Newark-Singapore) with a modified Airbus
A340-500. Of course, if you’re not shy of expenses, you can shell out
$5293 for entrance into VIP section called The Paddock Club. Of course,
that’s only worthwhile if you’re able to buy the tickets first.