Basketball: Breakers' fans miss out as site swamped

Kirk Penney. Photo / Getty Images

A whole season's demand in one day and a "shambolic" ticketing system have left many Breakers fans without seats for the NBL grand final's deciding game on Friday.

The PatronBase ticketing website was overwhelmed by 500,000 hits within four hours of tickets going on sale on Monday evening.

Breakers officials admitted they were unprepared for the demand for the NBL decider against the Cairns Taipans, and have promised a review of their use of the site.

"It was a higher level of activity than we would have had for an entire season, all compacted into four hours," said general manager Richard Clarke..

"And that's not something we'd anticipated."

PatronBase had been used for about five years and had handled previous sell-out games.

But "interest has gone through the roof for this game".

In an attempt to prevent overloading, the site did not announce what time tickets would go on sale, saying only that it would be some time on Monday afternoon.

Tim Arlott spent a "shambolic" five hours trying to secure tickets.

"I think the website they used is designed for doing school plays. It's certainly not designed for something like this.

"Big sites like Ticketmaster work very well.

"We go to the [rugby] sevens and it's very tough to get tickets.

"But if you're persistent, once you're logged in, you stay there. Whereas this thing just seemed to kick you off."

Mr Arlott, who has attended at least half of the team's home games this season, ended up with only one ticket despite having ordered two.

"One ticket's about as useful as one shoe ... I'll try to send my wife on her own but I don't think she'll want to go. We'll probably just give it away."

The Breakers' Facebook page was overwhelmed with irate messages from disappointed fans yesterday.

Karen Floyd wrote: "Been at 90 per cent of Breakers games over the past eight years and now [I'm] going to miss them winning the cup. Gutted after 11 hours of refreshing every 30 minutes."

John Whiting was more to the point: "[It was] quite possibly the worst ticketing and promotion process I've ever seen."

Others complained of securing only a single ticket, like Mr Arlott, or multiple ones in different parts of the stadium.

Mr Clarke said the Facebook page would be monitored and the ticketing problems sorted out where possible.

The club had some tickets on hold and others would be released after the number of tickets needed by Cairns Taipans fans was known.

"Where there are fans that have legitimately been with us, we're getting in touch with them ... but the key to it is the people who have guaranteed their seats are our members."

About 3000 tickets ranging in price from $20 to $52 were sold online for Friday's game at the 4200-capacity North Shore Events Centre.

Tickets appeared on Trade Me soon after going on sale, with one advertised for $100.

Mr Clarke said anyone who bought such a ticket for more than face value would risk not being allowed into the stadium.

"We can track the booking numbers and place warnings on all those auctions ... people that legitimately want to come to the game miss out because others are trying to make a buck out of it."

The NBL finals series is tied 1-1.