Rockies Web Site Crashes

Sorry, I'm from Boston, so I can't help but find this amusing. It's the Sox and the Rocks starting the 2007 World Series in Fenway tonight. Just yesterday, though, the Rockies were having a bit of technological trouble with their newfound success.

The computer systems that manage the Rockies' online ticket sales for the World Series, run by Irvine, Calif.-based Paciolan, crashed after a huge initial surge -- 8.5 million hits in the first 90 minutes. They sold several hundred tickets before they had to shut down. Paciolan and Rockies reps expected to have the ticket sales site back up by Tuesday afternoon.

This is a big deal, because the only way to get tickets for World Series games at Coors Field will be online, which the Rockies' management feels is the fairest method of distributing the 20,000 or so tickets up for grabs (the other 30,000 seats are for season ticket holders and the teams). Those who don't have access or quick enough connection weren't about to be denied. There was reportedly a small crowd of people lined up outside the Denver Public Library in the freezing pre-dawn waiting to use the library's computers to nail down tickets. You've got to admire that level of fanaticism.

Is the system crash a harbinger of their decline? Do you think it was really a systematic, malicious attack or just hordes of crazed baseballs fans trying to score a ticket? How does your organization handle spikes in Web traffic? Find me way out in left field and let me know at [email protected].

Posted by Lafe Low on October 24, 2007


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