Eurovision song contest Ticketmaster: Users greeted with error message as thousands attempt to buy Eurovision tickets

Eurovision fans desperate to get their hands on tickets this afternoon were left disappointed after Ticketmaster left some unable to purchase.

Eurovision fans crashed part of the Ticketmaster’s dedicated website page for the event shortly before tickets were due to go on sale.

Tickets for the 2023 live shows in Liverpool were set to become available at midday on Tuesday but minutes before those clicking through were met with a “500 – Internal Server Error” message.

Others reported receiving a message saying their session had expired “due to inactivity” while they were waiting in the queue.

Eurovision fans desperate to get their hands on tickets this afternoon were left disappointed after Ticketmaster crashed.

At 12.36pm the official Eurovision account tweeted that all tickets to the grand final had sold out.

Tickets to the remaining shows had sold out by 1.32pm.

Tickets for nine different live shows, which are being held in the city after the UK was chosen to host the competition on behalf of war-torn 2022 winner Ukraine, went on sale at 12pm – but many were soon taking to social media to voice this displeasure at the site crashing.

Hundreds of tickets were logged with site-measuring site DownDetector, with Manchester and London reporting the most issues.

Eurovision fans crashed Ticketmaster’s dedicated website page for the event shortly before tickets were due to go on sale - with the outage map on Downdetector

One social media user wrote: Helpful TicketmasterUK. “Sat happily in the Eurovision lobby waiting to enter the queue and then this - haven't managed to get back in since"

Another showed a screenshot from the internal server error message writing: “Well its already over”

A Ticketmaster spokesperson insisted that despite the problems the site did not crash: “The Ticketmaster site did not crash today – rather a very small number of fans experienced issues accessing the queue. Ticket sales were unaffected, and thousands of fans secured their seats for the Eurovision Song Contest, which is now sold out.”

A BBC Spokesperson said: “As expected demand for Eurovision Song Contest tickets was extremely high and tickets for all nine shows sold out in 90 minutes. Congratulations to those who secured their seats to Liverpool Arena in May. We are now looking forward to putting on a brilliant show for our global TV audience and those watching on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK.”

For briefing: We believe this is the first time ever that tickets to all nine live Eurovision shows sold out on the first day.

Before the sale, Ticketmaster urged fans to register an account in order to ensure the process went smoothly.

Fans were able to buy up to four tickets in a single order for the live shows and six in a single order for the preview performances.

The international singing competition will take place at the 11,000-capacity Liverpool Arena later this year, culminating in the grand final on May 13.

Tickets for the semi-final shows are priced from £30 to £290, with the cost increasing to between £80 and £380 for the grand final shows.

Those who managed to secure tickets celebrated on social media while others commiserated online.

After the sale Rylan Clark, who also features on the presenting line-up, tweeted: “Congrats if you got tickets! If not don’t worry, the Euro Village is gonna be amazing. #Eurovision is gonna take over the whole city.

“See you soon Liverpool…. All aboard.. (2018 ref for you die hards).”