The Formula One Australian Grand Prix went on sale Tuesday afternoon, but immediately after the sale began, fans were unable to purchase tickets. Ticketmaster is blaming a “global third-party outage” for the sale delay.
“Due to a global third-party outage, the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix 2025 general public onsale will be delayed until tomorrow Wednesday 9 October 12pm AEDT,” Ticketmaster said in a statement. “We apologize for any inconvenience.”
— Ticketmaster AU (@Ticketmaster_AU) October 8, 2024
Fans took to social media to share their frustrations and concerns regarding Ticketmaster’s statement. Many questioned the outage and one fan even shared screenshots of Ticketmaster’s Application Programming Interface status feed, showing that the site was operational at the time of the sale.
— Samuel Cochran.oci (@sj26) October 8, 2024
Legally Extorts people for a living and still can’t manage to administer your core purpose. Pathetic.
— Manda (@misspandamanda) October 8, 2024
@Ticketmaster_AU disaster trying to get F1 tickets. Got in right at 12pm and it says it has already ended?! pic.twitter.com/vWc75eALuJ
— Jessica Lansdown 🇦🇺 (@JessJL0430) October 8, 2024
Of course it’s a third party’s fault. More like you couldn’t allocate enough tickets as “in demand” to rip everyone off an extra $300 so you decided to postpone it. Absolute joke.
— Millie (@Millie___7) October 8, 2024
Additionally, fans pointed out Ticketmaster’s infamous dynamic pricing practice, which increases ticket prices based on demand.
Dynamic pricing should not be allowed. $207 + additional handling fees for a Sunday general admission ticket for the Aus GP 2025?!?!! And it’s not like you’re able to really see the cars on the track as this year I had to go to a screen in order to see anything
— Kat 🇨🇦 now in aus 🇦🇺 (@Kat_F1) October 7, 2024
wtf ticketmaster i mean after an hour on yesterday trying for f1 tickets and clicking many seats and then being ‘not available’, the site crashed today??? as well as the fcken prices god this years aus gp is a shitshow
— formula.one.home (@formula_one_b) October 8, 2024
Why is there no action against Ticketmaster price gauging F1 Tickets? What a fucking joke @F1 and @Ticketmaster_AU @Ticketmaster are the biggest ticket scalpers.
— Karan (@_itsKaran) October 8, 2024
‘Global third party outage’ is such cap. You guys are such a shocking company and demand pricing can get in the bin.
— Fuck TicketMaster (@aanddyy2k) October 8, 2024
@F1 @ausgrandprix do something about your fans being treated so poorly. Shocking customer service and we have to pay ‘demand’ pricing. No shit there’s demand when your server crashes at anything over 10k people trying to buy a ticket. Absolute rip off merchants.
— Fuck TicketMaster (@aanddyy2k) October 8, 2024
So is anyone going to formally complain re Aus gp / Ticketmaster raising the price for tickets that are ‘in demand’? How is that any different from someone reselling their ticket for a higher price because it’s in demand.. how is this not price gouging? #f1
— Laz (@LaraVacs) October 7, 2024
Already, ticket sales for the Australian Grand Prix have stirred up controversy. Australian Grand Prix CEO Travis Auld said that the price change is due to the cost of holding a Formula One event, telling News Corp that “I think the cost of holding global major events is increasing.”
“We are seeing unprecedented demand and we have got to try and balance that with keeping the event as accessible as possible and we’ve had a lot of conversations around that,” Auld said. “People have different views around that but that is certainly the intention.”
The Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix 2025 is set to run from March 13 to 16 at the Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit.
