Demand For Panthers Fan Fest Tickets Causes Glitch On Ticketmaster

Demand for free tickets to the NFL Panthers’ annual Fan Fest "paralyzed the team’s Ticketmaster service Friday morning as fans flooded the site to reserve their seats." The site opened at 10:00am ET Friday, and by 5:00pm "all of the 60,000 tickets available tickets for the Aug. 5 event had been claimed." Panthers Exec Dir of Ticketing & Sponsorship Phil Youtsey said, "The ticket system was overwhelmed and stressed out. At one point, this is what they told me, they had over 40,000 devices hitting the system all at one time." Several fans "took to Twitter Friday morning to share their frustrations." They experienced "unusually long wait times, and some had to refresh the page multiple times before reserving their ticket" (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 7/23).