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At five minutes past noon on Friday, Ticketmaster sent Joe Holmes and many others in Britain an email: “Congratulations, you have succeeded in the ballot” for two tickets to the coronation concert of King Charles.
Mr Holmes, a final-year student at the University of Essex, saw it right away when he checked his email and quickly clicked on the link to get tickets to the concert, the official coronation event which will take place a day after King Charles. III crowned – will only be met with a message that no one is available.
He was one of dozens of people who believed they had gained entry to the concert before being quickly arrested after trying to collect tickets. Many Twitter users posted images of the “congratulations” emails they received from Mr. Holmes this week and expressed their frustration at the confusing messaging; one user called email It’s a “shame” and says Ticketmaster has a “total system breakdown.”
It was “immediate excitement and then immediate disappointment,” Mr. Holmes said Friday. He had emailed his sister a screenshot of the celebration and believed the next step was to book a train to the event.
Ticketmaster was tasked with issuing 10,000 free tickets for the May 7 concert through voting, a process that fans of the site say has created a mess. It comes a few months after the company canceled the public sale of tickets for Taylor Swift’s latest tour because of high demand, which spurred public anger, lawsuits from fans and Senate hearings.
Ticketmaster said in an emailed statement on Friday that those who had been selected in the previous round of voting had three weeks to claim tickets to the coronation concert. On Tuesday, after that period has expired, “unclaimed tickets will be released on a first-come, first-served basis for those who previously applied and were unsuccessful,” the company said. “That must have been too soon.”
A tweet from UK company page on Tuesday announced that tickets had “sold out”. The replies to the tweet included stories of similar experiences to Mr Holmes.
Applications to be included in the ballot are open from February 10 to February 28. Tickets will be allocated “based on the geographical distribution of the British population,” according to the British royal family’s website.
Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Take That will headline the concert, which is organized and broadcast by the BBC. It is the first time it has been held in the grounds of Windsor Castle, the royal family said. Mr Holmes, who said his mother traveled to London for the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, wanted to attend the concert so he could be “part of history”.
An email from Ticketmaster said Mr. Holmes was one of a “randomly selected group of election winners” offered tickets in an “additional round” that would be on a “first-come, first-served basis.” He called for “quick action.” But further, he said that he will have until noon on April 27 to claim the ticket, and then “it will be allocated again.”
Even so, Mr Holmes said he acted within minutes to no avail. It is not clear how many tickets are available, or how many people received the same email.
He searched Twitter and found many other people who said they had similar experiences.
Janine Barclay, 58, who received the same email on Tuesday, declined the lunch invitation for May 7 because she thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “I told everybody about it,” he said on Friday, “and then I had egg on my face.”
He received the email as he was leaving home and delayed his tickets, thinking he had been gone for a few days. Mrs. Barclay said he was thankful he lived close enough to Windsor Castle that his instinct was not to book a hotel or travel.
“He misled people,” Mr. “We know how the concert is now,” he said. “It’s hard to get tickets, it’s an event in itself.” They plan to watch the concert on television at the family barbecue.
Beyond the bad blood with the Swifties, Ticketmaster came under fire in March when fans tried to attend the final round of the Eurovision Song Contest and some complained that there was a disruption in the absence of tickets. The Cure said last month that Ticketmaster agreed to issue refunds to some fans after they complained of high ticket prices.
“This is a fiasco,” said Ms. Barclay, a swimming coach and teacher in Pinner, England, who was delighted to invite his wife to the coronation concert. “For a big company like this,” he said, “you’d think they’d do better.”
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