Millions apply for Olympic tickets despite site crash

Around 20 million tickets for the Olympics were applied for on Tuesday night despite a surge in demand causing the site to crash.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) estimates 20 million tickets were applied for, with around 1.8 million people submitting requests for tickets.

Around 6.6 million tickets went on sale to the public with a deadline of midnight on Tuesday, but the organising body was forced to extend the deadline by an hour to 1am on Wednesday after a surge in applications caused the site to falter.

Andreas Edler, managing director at Hostway UK said LOCOG should have foreseen the demand. "You would expect ticketing websites in this day and age to build in adequate capacity and utilise better traffic management practices to cope with the excess of visitors," he said.

The ticket allocation process for London 2012 has already come under criticism, as money will be taken from accounts from 10 May but customers will not find out which events they have 'won' tickets to until June.

LOCOG said it will now check and de-duplicate applications before running ballots across sessions which are oversubscribed and process applications.

Sebastian Coe, LOCOG chairman, said he was thrilled by the response. "Certain events have seen massive demand - for example the Opening Ceremony, which is more than 10 times oversubscribed, so there will understandably be disappointment and we will find a way to go back to those people with other tickets.

"What is most encouraging is that the majority of applications are for multiple tickets and for several sports, which shows that friends and family are planning to go to the Games together."

Those customers who were not successful in their initial application will be given further opportunities to apply for remaining tickets in June and July as part of this process, said the body.