'Curious' About Red Sox Virtual Waiting Room

WBZ

When tickets for the 2010 Red Sox season went on sale Saturday morning, excited fans sat down at their computers to buy their tickets. For many it was a patience-testing game of hurry-up-and-wait.

Ticket buyers by the thousands were ushered into a virtual waiting room, where they waited in line… and waited… and waited. In fact, the online ticket purchasing web site was flooded by so much traffic that it crashed twice over the weekend, Red Sox Executive Vice President Sam Kennedy told WBZ.

The long online wait spurred WBZ viewer Dianne to Declare her Curiosity:

"Does anyone actually get to purchase tickets from the Red Sox 'virtual waiting room'? For years, I've waited, and waited, and waited, for hours, when tickets go on sale and have never been able to actually get in."

Kennedy addressed Dianne's frustration, calling ticket sales the "biggest business challenge" the Red Sox have. Turning to online sales may cause frustration, but it helps to avoid the security and safety issues that come with tens of thousands of fans lining up overnight outside Fenway Park.

Read: Red Sox End Ticket Price Freeze

For the record, plenty of fans did eventually find their way through the virtual waiting room this weekend. Kennedy said the team sold about 230,000 tickets this weekend – 200,000 of those online. The other 30,000 were sold by phone and in-person at the "Christmas at Fenway" event.

Kennedy said the Red Sox online ticket system can accommodate about 500 buyers at a time. Because thousands of buyers typically are online at one time, they get put in the waiting room.

In-person ticket sales this weekend were only available for fans who pre-registered and were then invited to attend the Christmas at Fenway event.

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