It is not every day that the world’s biggest heavy metal act comes Down Under. So fans wasted no time when the first pre-sale for Metallica's concerts opened on Friday, hitting Ticketek in record numbers for this financial year.
But the ticketing company was prepared, and had doubled its server capacity weeks before, allowing it to process 20,000 sessions — or 20,000 online ticket sales — concurrently.
If the first rush of Metallica fans wasn’t enough of a traffic load, Ticketek also catered for several AFL games which went on sale the same day.
Chief operating officer, Fiona Boyd, said Ticketek sold a record amount of tickets on Friday.
“It was the busiest ever with Metallica and AFL ticket sales on the same day,” Boyd said.
“But we haven’t yet maxed-out our capacity.
“I may be wrong, but I don’t think we’ve served up a single time-out page.”
Efforts to stagger the ticket sales, a decision by promoter Michael Coppel, did not stifle demand in which tickets were snapped-up within minutes.
Boyd said the general ticket sales day on Thursday will also see huge customer demand.
Ticketek virtualised its servers under a year-long infrastructure upgrade project, and also acquired excess “burst-capacity” to handle high-traffic events. It also upgraded its core support applications and operating systems.
Online sales are “by far” the most popular medium for customers purchasing tickets, Boyd said, but Ticketek has also upgraded its Interactive Voice Response system with a voice-overlay feature.
That system contains an end-to-end transaction which allows users to purchase tickets and request ticket information such as location, seating availability and pricing without any touchtone input. It's caller identity functionality offers events at venues closest to the customer's location to cut down service times and allows purchases to be made using stored credit cards linked to customer identity numbers.
Metallica has opened new shows in Sydney, Queensland and Melbourne. There are 13 shows in total.
This writer will see you there.