Beijing Olympic Committee Abandons Online Ticket Sales

After crushing demand crashed online ticket system, summer Olympics organizers move to a lottery scheme for ticket sales.

By Sumner Lemon
Tue, November 06, 2007

IDG News Service (Singapore Bureau) — Organizers of the 2008 Olympics gave up on plans for online ticket sales Monday, admitting defeat after a crush of eager buyers crashed the ticketing system last week.

MORE ON CIO.com

Beijing Olympics Ticketing System Crashes on First Day

Lessons from Colorado Rockies Ticketing System Crash

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), which had promised to host a "high-tech games," will instead offer tickets through a lottery system. Ticket applications will be accepted from Dec. 10 until Dec. 30, but organizers have not said how many tickets each person will be allowed to purchase or when the lottery will be held.

The ticketing fiasco was a blow to preparations for the 2008 Olympics, which have otherwise proceeded with relative smoothness thanks to strong government and popular support.

But that popular support proved to be the undoing of the ticketing system built to handle domestic tickets sales for the games. The system crashed shortly after ticket sales began on Oct. 30.

During the first hour of operation, the web site for ticket sales received 8 million page views, with an average of 200,000 ticket requests filed every minute. Designed to handle 1 million visits per hour and a maximum of 150,000 ticket requests per minute, the system could not cope with demand.

Attempts made on the afternoon of Oct. 30 to reconfigure the system to handle heavier traffic loads did not succeed, and organizers later announced the sale of tickets had been suspended.

You are here: Technology Topics » Security » News

Most Recent Security Stories

White Papers »

Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory

As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable, enforceable processes that reduces administrative overhead and enables robust, customizable reporting and auditing capabilities. Brought to you by NetIQ.

Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware

Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring (FIM) tools that provide immediate alerts. This white paper has been brought to you by NetIQ, the leader in solving complex IT challenges.

Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.

Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in organizations worldwide. This white paper from NetIQ, discusses key technology solutions that help to prevent and detect insider threats.

X-Ray of the PCI Process-4 Proactive Steps

This white paper from Forrester Research Inc., helps break PCI into understandable components. Security and risk professionals will gain knowledge and insight into creating a compliant and secure IT environment. Follow these four proactive steps now before your next audit. Brought to you by NetIQ.

Streamline Compliance and Increase ROI

Streamline, simplify, and automate compliance related activities; especially those that impact multiple business units. This white paper from NetIQ, outlines solutions that will help your business gain the maximum return on investment possible while aligning your compliance programs.

Identity Governance: The Business Imperatives

This white paper describes the business challenges and opportunities that are driving interest in Identity Governance while discussing considerations your organization should make to help achieve project success.

Webcasts »

Gartner Next Generation Network IPS Webcast

Learn how Gartner's criteria for next generation IPS helps organizations achieve effective threat prevention despite changes in network communications, new applications, and changes in the threat landscape.

McAfee Continuous Compliance

3 minute Flash video - overview of the need for and value of Configuration Control.

Taming the Wild West: How to build a strong cloud security strategy

Cloud deployments are playing a critical role in propelling innovation for many companies. At the same time security has become the #1 one of the top concerns for IT and business leaders as they migrate into the cloud. In this webinar, learn from Accenture discusses how to recast the cloud as a "fresh chance to rethink your approach to security."

Virtualization Success is a Team Effort

As greater numbers of datacenter servers transition from the physical to the virtual world, the components of virtualization success come to the fore. What scores of organizations have discovered is that success is derived from an optimal pairing of the right software platform with the right hardware platform.

Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware

Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn about VMware customer, Navicure, and their experiences testing and evaluating the recovery manager, their progress in implementing it in their environment and their advice other customers considering using vCenter.

Quantifying the Business Value of VMware View - Webcast

Many enterprises have discovered that the use of virtualization to support desktop workloads creates a range of significant benefits. These benefits include price efficiencies, improved IT management and greater agility and choice for end users.

This VMware sponsored webcast with IDC will provide both quantitative measurement of the business value -- defined as the expected ROI -- and qualitative analysis associated with the use of VMware View™. IDC will also provide an analysis of the View Composer and ThinApp™ features of VMware View, including the business value of these solutions and an overview of how they work.

Attend this webcast to learn about:
- Challenges and barriers that might impede the adoption of desktop virtualization
- Navigating roadblocks to facilitate a strategic implementation
- Optimizing qualitative and quantitative benefits to IT and your business

Newsletter Sign-Up »

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter