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‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Ticket Demand Crashes Online Ticket Sites Worldwide

By Lawrence Arboleda
Published on: 21:01 PST, Oct 19, 2015

The sudden surge of advance ticket sales for the highly-anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens has caused many ticket seller sites to crash on Monday, according to The Huffington Post.

Advance tickets for the upcoming Star Wars film went on sale early Monday, crashing several cinema websites from the U.K. and the US. These incidents happened shortly after the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer hit the web. The trailer made its debut during the half-time show of ESPN’s National Football League game.

The trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens had 17,000 mentions per minute on Twitter and was viewed on YouTube 220,000 times within the first 20 minutes from the moment it hit the web.

Slated for cinematic release on December 18, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the long-awaited next installment in the iconic Star Wars franchise. It is the franchise’s seventh film overall and the first since Episode III – Revenge of the Sith in 2005.

Fandango, the most popular leading online ticket provider in the US, and AMC Theatres, the nation’s second-largest theater chain, were among those sites that went down during the ticket sale upsurge. The Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse and the LA-based Arclight Cinemas also had some technical difficulties with their servers.

“Fandango was most seriously affected as of this writing, with the site timing out before the home page loads when we attempted to access it,” Deadline reports. “Service for ticket sellers has been spotty all over, and though many fans were eventually able to purchase tickets after several attempts, others are reporting they’ve gotten access only for these sites to crash again before finalization.”

Arclight released a statement following the crash of their site.

We greatly apologize for the inconvenience, but we are working quickly to get the website back up ASAP

ODEON Cinemas said that Monday was “our busiest day ever for online bookings,” while Vue Entertainment confirmed it had sold around 10,000 tickets within the first 90 minutes. Both ticket sellers said that some customers faced delays buying tickets due to heavy online traffic.

The official trailer for the new Star Wars film was preceded by two teasers this year: an 88-second trailer in November and a 2-minute trailer in April.

Before the trailer was released, the film’s director J.J. Abrams tweeted a statement saying, “We cannot wait to share the trailer with you tonight. I don’t care if you’re black, white, brown, Jawa, Wookie, Jedi or Sith. I just hope you like it.”

Star Wars fans have every good reason to be hyped about the new film given the vast scope presented by the trailer, not to mention the appearances of some of the film franchise’s long-beloved characters such as Princess Leia and Han Solo, both of which reprised by Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford respectively. In one scene, the old Han Solo and old Princess Leia are seen sharing an embrace. Princess Leia was also heard saying, “The Force, it’s calling to you. Just let it in.”

Equally interesting are the cast of newcomers to the Star Wars franchise led by Rey (Daisy Ridley), presumed to be the scavenger daughter of Princess Leia and Han Solo, and Finn (John Boyega), a Stormtrooper who defected from the Empire. Having a female and a black man as the lead protagonists for the multi-billion film franchise also marks another big step in terms of the media push for diversity.

The ticket sales for the upcoming Star Wars film are expected to surpass the record held by The Hunger Games in 2012. Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst for Rentrak, predicted that the film could earn over $2 billion worldwide.

“This is maybe the most anticipated movie of the last 10 years.”

[Image courtesy of Disney]

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