NRL 2020: Suncorp Stadium Ticketek crowd drama ‘complete shambles’

The NRL has a COVID-19 nightmare on its hands after a Ticketek glitch created a social distancing farce before Friday nights Suncorp Stadium showdown between the Storm and Raiders. A failure in Ticketek’s system impacted ticket machines nationally with both the NRL and the AFL’s preliminary final at the Adelaide Oval both forced to lock out thousands of fans as a result of a system breakdown.
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Angry fans and NRL commentators were fuming at being locked out in a congested crowd of thousands.
But what came next was even more concerning, with fans claiming they were then allowed into the Stadium with all social distancing measures abandoned.
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There were some claims on social media fans were barely screened by security on their way into the venue after the match started with thousands caught trying to enter.
Triple M’s Ben Dobbin said up to 20,000 had been caught in the shambles.
“Ticketek has crashed and there’s 20,000 people stuck outside,” he said.
Fox League’s Andrew Voss said the game was even delayed to try to squeeze as many fans into the venue before kick-off as possible.
It clearly didn’t help.
“There’s some kind of ticketing crash, thousands of people are still outside,” Fox League commentator Andrew Voss said.
“They’ve delayed this as much as they can but for such a big game they can’t be pushing it back too much.”
Former Adelaide Crows coach Graham Cornes said the situation was not much better at Adelaide Oval where fans were caught out in heavy rain.
“Hundreds of people have been affected by Ticketek tonight,” Cornes told SEN Radio.
“There’s people standing outside in the rain at Adelaide Oval right now.”
The Courier-Mail’s Amy Price reported the situation got worse when the gates were opened up and fans were ushered straight inside the venue.
Some fans inside the venue were shocked the scenes of fans charging into the venue after kick-off clearly violating the social distancing rules that saw the Queensland Government boost capacity for NRL finals held at the venue to 25,000.
Others described the scenes of fans packed in outside the venue as a “complete shambles”.