Supporters unable to get hold of Rugby World Cup 2023 tickets on Tuesday described the set-up as "truly dreadful" after spending hours queuing only to either be booted from the system or seeing their purchases fail to go through.
All 350,000 tickets made available on Tuesday for the next Rugby World Cup were sold within five hours on the first day of general sale, with supporters able to buy groups of tickets for multiple matches in locations such as Paris, Lille and Bordeaux.
"The France 2023 Organising Committee does rejoice in the continued enthusiasm shown by rugby fans across the world," read a statement from RWC2023, following the announcement that all 350,000 tickets had been sold.
However, supporters were left furious with the ticketing website's numerous issues, billing it as "the worst platform I’ve ever experienced" and "a shocking process".
Others noted that once supporters had been able to gain access to the ticketing section of the website, and completed a purchase, they were then not removed from the system, allowing them to continue purchasing other packs of tickets while other supporters remained in the queue. "A lucky few people could just keep buying tickets once they were in from what I could see," one supporter told Telegraph Sport.
Another supporter who did manage to eventually get tickets, although not their initial preference, added: "I know it's difficult trying to cope with such high demand, but this process really has been quite shambolic."
Previous ticket-buying experiences, such as at the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England where there was similarly-high demand, were described by supporters as being far smoother than the system set up for the 2023 tournament.
An initial pre-sale period for members of the "2023 family" began in March and faced similar technical issues, with the RWC 2023 director general Claude Atcher apologising to supporters at the time for these issues.
"We're well aware that there are a lot of people who were not able to purchase their tickets despite a long wait. We're sorry about that," Atcher said in March. "There were seven minutes during which there were indeed error messages. There were also people who waited a very long time, that's the truth."
Tickets for the knockout phases will be made available to the general public in autumn 2021. The RWC 2023 committee added that tickets being advertised on non-official platforms will be made void. An official resale platform will be launched during the first trimester of 2022 to allow individual ticket holders to sell on any tickets they do not wish to keep.
First-hand accounts as supporters struggles to buy tickets"My dad, bless him, has tried and as a 70-year-old man, likely to be his last World Cup, he'd actually go to. He's gutted he's not been able to get the Wales package"
"Truly dreadful. The number of tickets available kept changing, but any time I would try to add them to my basket I'd be hit by an error. One of the worst/just plain useless ticketing sites I've used in a long time"
"I'm a software dev and I found the process rough. The front end of the site seemed to be built with legacy libraries that most devs turn their noses up to these days. I wanted an Ireland pack. I ended up going for a South Africa pack. I know queuing and ticketing is something that companies struggle with, even Ticketmaster, 'Black Friday' deals etc. But that was poor yesterday"
"Whole thing was a shambles. Worst thing was the false hope for those of us who signed up to be part of the France 2023 'family' early thinking we would be rewarded for our pre-planning"
"Was ready to go at 5pm, didn't get through the queue until 7.45pm and then despite saying ticket packs were available, I couldn't add any to my basket without it crashing. Third attempt at getting tickets and failed each time"
"Registered for all the early bird sales, had a MasterCard. Waited in a queue for 40 mins and when I got in I thought the safest thing to do was to immediately log in to my account because that's where all my payment details were saved. That action caused me to get booted out of the site and back to the queue where I waited for four hours before finally getting through and everything was gone"
"What was bizarre was after the transaction it just left me logged in and able to buy more tickets so I got a Lille pack as well as nobody else in our group got through. I expected after one transaction it would kick me out but this is possibly why people couldn't get out of the queue"
Organisers of the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France have apologised after fans experienced glitches and long waiting times when the first tickets went on sale on Monday.
All 310,000 tickets available were sold on the first day of a Mastercard presale of City and Team packs, with 350 transactions per minute.
However, many fans reported problems with the ticket platform, with organisers admitting that website visitors were met with error messages for seven minutes in the early afternoon.
France 2023 director general Claude Atcher told reporters: “We’re well aware that there are a lot of people who were not able to purchase their tickets despite a long wait. We’re sorry about that.
“There were seven minutes during which there were indeed error messages. Between 1:30 and 1:37pm precisely. There were also people who waited a very long time, that’s the truth.
“We assume the ‘first arrived, first served’ principle. It has negative effects but that’s our philosophy.”
Despite the technical challenges, Atcher has been delighted to see the response from fans to the 2023 tournament.
Atcher said: “All the tickets provided for in the Team packs and City packs available in the first phase of sales have found takers. Which means that over the whole day, we sold 310,000 tickets in less than 12 hours and two years before the competition.
“After some research, the World Cup or any sporting event had never met with such success and aroused such collective enthusiasm.”
The next stage of sales begins on Thursday with 310,000 tickets to be made available to all those who have registered with the 2023 Family programme, ahead of the general sale launch in April.
A total of 2.6 million tickets will go on sale before the tournament starts in September 2023.
Earlier this week, organisers said: “With 500,000 people registered to the 2023 Family and tickets sold in real time, demand for rugby’s pinnacle tournament is expected to surpass previous events. In the event of a high volume of fans trying to access tickets.rugbyworldcup.com at the same time, a queue system will be implemented to allow fans who are on the ticketing website the chance to purchase packs easily and without issues.
“Rugby enthusiasts waiting to access the platform will have an option to be alerted by email when they reach the front of the queue. Fans also have 48 hours to confirm their selection and can make phased payments.”
Image: Rugby World Cup