If you were hoping to get tickets to the Cape Town Sevens rugby tournament in December, forget about it. It is sold out.
Tickets went on sale yesterday, and in under two hours they were gone.
“Computicket experienced unseen levels of interest as all the available tickets for the events on Saturday 9 and Sunday, 10 December were snapped up shortly before 11am - less than 120 minutes after they went on sale,” read a statement from SA Rugby.
Many fans who braved the Computicket queues were left disappointed. One fan said: “We were told by Computicket all tickets currently available have been grabbed; please continue trying.”
Craig Hallett vented his frustration on Facebook. “Computicket please explain to me how both days of Cape Town Sevens are sold out already and that I’ve been seeing ‘All tickets grabbed’ since 9.05am. You really should hand over the mantle to another ticket handler if you can’t handle it.”
The #CapeTown7s sells out in under two hours. Not surprising with action like this at last year's tournament 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/1Y5mBvqBnx
— World Rugby Sevens (@WorldRugby7s) July 28, 2017
Shoprite Holdings spokesperson Sarita van Wyk said the tickets sold at a rate of 1 254 tickets per minute. She described this as the “shortest and quickest time” that tickets to any Cape Town event ever sold through Computicket were gone.
“Tickets were sold through Computicket’s online booking platform, the app and call centre, as well as in-store at Shoprite and Checkers stores at the same time, to enable as many available channels for customers to obtain tickets,” Van Wyk said.
She explained that the added feature of smart seat allocation was recently implemented to handle high-volume events. The feature allows the system to automatically reselect available seating if the customer’s seating choice isn’t available, she said.
Rugby fans with extra cash on hand will be able to secure hospitality packages for both event days.
They are priced from R995 to R4 095 per person per day. It includes a match-day ticket, as well as various offerings of food, drinks and parking. It will be available through SA Rugby.