‘Crash’ gets band’s fans hot under collar

Etienne Creux

The queue for The Red Hot Chilli Peppers tickets at Hatfield Plaza Computicket started forming at 2am and by 7am it had stretched out into the parking area. Photo: Etienne Creux

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MANY Red Hot Chili Peppers fans were disappointed when Computicket’s system went on a 23-hour “crash” diet.

People determined to secure their tickets queued for hours on end at Computicket outlets from Tuesday morning.

Clair Attewell waited at the Glen Shopping Centre in Joburg from 10am on Tuesday. About 23 hours later – at 9am on Wednesday – she was first in line when Computicket sales resumed..

Gemma McLean waited at the Computicket branch in Hatfield from 2am on Wednesday. She was the only one to secure a general admission ticket.

Another fan, Michele Dempster, also joined the queue in Hatfield – but also went online. By 9.05am, she was number 4 000 in the online queue.

If you were in the online queue at 1pm on Wednesday, there would have been 11 901 people ahead of you.

Red Hot Chili Peppers' Mike "Flea" Balazary, left, and Anthony Kiedis, right, perform during the Rock in Rio music festival in Arganda del Rey, on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain, Sunday, July 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

AP

The band are to perform at the FNB stadium near Soweto on February 2.

John Langford, chief operating officer of Big Concerts, said the demand for tickets was the biggest they’ve had in recent history.

“The golden circle tickets sold the fastest of any of our shows since we have been using the World Cup stadiums,” he said.

Ten percent of all tickets were made available online beforehand.

Tickets were to go on sale in Cape Town on Thursday from 9am.

Many people were so frustrated by the ticket debacle they said they would buy tickets for the Cape Town show and fly down for it. However, fans in the Mother City are equally upset after both Golden Circle and general admission tickets were sold out within minutes after sales opened on Thursday.

Many joined the queue for tickets in the early hours of the morning, only to be told Golden Circle tickets were sold out. Fans were particularly upset that people were allowed to buy up to 20 tickets at a time.

“How can computicket allow people to buy 20 at a time. Seriously not fare. Something must be done about that. Really not cool. And I've been waiting since 7 and now I can only get general admission. How's that?????? (sic)” vented one irate Facebook user.

Big Concerts announced the band would come to SA shortly after Red Hot Chili Peppers replied to a tweet from an SA-based page It’s not a world tour if you don’t come to Africa. The page is dedicated to encouraging bands to include Africa in their world tours.

“We are not saying we are the reason they are coming, but we would like to be involved in bands touring Africa,” said Stephan Terblanche, the page’s creator.