Thousands of Mission Concert punters were left in the lurch yesterday as the official website crashed.
Tickets to the 2017 Mission Concert went on sale at 12pm and just moments later the website collapsed leaving fans angry, frustrated and annoyed.
Mission fan, Rochelle Gormly, said she absolutely admired and loved the Mission and its concerts but felt there were some things it should not do - like selling tickets.
"I just think they should hand the selling of all tickets over to major suppliers, as they cannot deal with the traffic. They should have just left it all to Ticketek."
She spent an hour and 20 minutes on the site and still walked away with no tickets.
"It took one hour until I was through to the payments and 20 minutes later it booted me out.
The whole process was overwhelming and I actually lost the plot."
Dixie Chicks fans also voiced their anger on the Mission Estate Winery Concert Facebook page.
One person said they had taken time off work to get the tickets and were unable to get through.
"Took time off work for this - grrr."
Others said they had to wait in a queue of almost 100 to get the tickets while racing against the purchase time of just three minutes.
"Took almost an hour just to be able to get to the site, then waited in a queue of almost 100 to get two tickets. The three minute time limit was not up but the system timed out. Go to the back of the queue - 186 this time. Not a happy camper."
Mission Estate Winery CEO, Peter Holley, said the sheer volume of traffic pulled the website down, so they had to replace the server.
"It was down for 25 minutes give or take and it is one of those things that is very frustrating and unnecessary."
This sort of thing is not uncommon and we were well resourced but it happened in a pivotal moment."
Mr Holley said fans should not worry, as they were going back through the system allocations to make sure those who bought tickets during the crash would receive confirmation soon.
"The credit card transactions kept going when the website was down so we will just have to play catch-up."
Mr Holley said the high volume of traffic was encouraging with regards to the concert and headline act.
"We have had a huge amount of interest towards Dixie Chicks and we can see this through the vitality and pace of ticket sales. It is extraordinary how well they have been received."
- Hawke's Bay Today
