“An important message to those who are buying tickets to the Final! Due to extremely high demand and despite the large capacity, there is a limit to the amount of traffic the platform can handle per hour, so keep trying! Tickets are available for German and foreign fans. Buy through Dticket.de, the *only* official ticket partner! There are *no* other ticket partners, so be careful of scams!”. This is the official message from EBU following the collapse of the server due to high ticket demand.

Many fans were in front of their computers this morning at 12:12 CET, as it was the official opening time for the selling of the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 final tickets. However, it seems that the platform was already working before the given time, which led to the collapse of the server.

EBU explains that the machine has a "large capacity", but "there is a limit to the amount of traffic the platform can handle per hour", so the Union invites fans to keep trying in order to get their tickets for the great event in May 14th.

Thomas Schreiber, Head of Entertainment at Host Broadcaster NDR, said to Eurovision.tv: "To spread out the peak traffic, we decided to offer the readers of Eurovision.de to buy tickets before noon. However, this was limited to an amount of 4,000 tickets. At the same time, a significant amount of front section tickets has been reserved for the international fan clubs, and several thousands more will go on sale at a later stage, when we know the exact camera positions and the number of participating countries." NDR decided to giveMyEurovision subscribersthe opportunity to be informed in advance when these tickets go on sale, similar to the way the mailing list members of Eurovision.de have been pre-informed earlier today. More information will be communicated in due time. Note that tickets for the Final are still available!

Meanwhile, EBU has also announced that tickets for the jury final will go on sale this Wednesday. The jury final is the second Dress Rehearsal on Friday, 13th of May, based on which the juries in all participating countries will cast their points. Juries have a 50% stake in the outcome. Tickets for the Semi-Finals and Semi-Final Dress Rehearsals will go on sale in mid-January.

Sietse Bakker, manager Communications and PR at the European Broadcasting Union states: "We are very aware of the fact that this situation has to be improved when the other tickets go on sale. However, never before in the history of online ticket sales, the Eurovision Song Contest took place in such a large country with such high demand for tickets. Despite the ticket company that Host Broadcaster NDR appointed having experience with large events ánd being prepared for unprecedented amounts of ticket requests for the Eurovision Song Contest, the amount of interest still exceeded the most optimistic estimations. The commitment of the fans from Germany and abroad in itself is a positive sign, but Iunderstand how frustrating it is for those who are trying to obtain tickets. We apologize for their inconvenience".

UPDATE

The 32,000 available tickets for the Final of the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest are now SOLD OUT. In the weeks to come, a few thousand tickets more will become available, after it has become known how many countries will participate and camera positions have been determined.