Racing
League
Rugby
Cricket
Golf
Motorsport
Combat Sports
Football
Netball
Basketball
Other Sports
Sport Nation
“Panicking”: Footy fans blow up as Ticketek struggles with finals demand
SEN • September 15th, 2025 5:25 pm
AFL fans have again been left frustrated by Ticketek in the annual race for finals tickets.
Preliminary Final tickets for Geelong v Hawthorn on Friday night and Collingwood v Brisbane on Saturday night went on sale today, but it wasn’t at all smooth sailing for punters keen to get to the MCG this weekend.
Crowds of 90,000 or more are expected at both finals.
One Cats Priority 1 member logged on just prior to 9am and there were at least 30,000 people ahead in the queue. After two hours, tickets were finally purchased but not before plenty of gilt-edged and nervous moments.
Fans were being hit with 404 errors as the Ticketek website failed to play ball. There were plenty of complaints on social media.
And there were plenty of irate people calling SEN to voice their concerns on SEN’s Dwayne’s World.
“I’m a Hawks gold member for 16 years. It really is a terrible system,” one caller said on Midday Madness.
“It’s based on just panicking and making people make rash decisions. They call it a priority queue but there’s no priority at all.
“It’s a third world system. It’s very stressful, you sit there for hours and it throws you out.”
Another caller said: “My uncle has flown from England. He’s a Lethal Member (with Hawthorn), we’re all 28-year members and four of us tried to log on but we couldn’t get tickets.
“We’re the top-class Hawthorn members and the system broke down. Went to pay, it wouldn’t process it, tried five times all morning - the system is broken.
“And he’s flown from England to come out (for the final). It’s disappointing we can’t get to the game when we’re top-class members.”
Dwayne Russell assessed the situation: “The ticketing system is broken. But it’s supply and demand and sometimes you don’t get it.
“I can feel your pain.”
There was further frustration later in Dwayne’s show, with one caller asking the broadcaster: “I’m just after your thoughts on the MCC’s decision to release one visitor’s pass for full and restricted members when lots of full and restricted members missed out having been on the line since 8am.
“You jump in the stupid Ticketek queue, then you get spat out to about 30,000 in the queue, then you miss out, then you’ve got to try through your club.
“We spend lots and lots of money each year.”
Russell replied: “It’s beyond my pay grade, the ticketing.
“It’s obviously a pretty difficult one. I’ve said it a hundred times - if we had a 500,000-seat stadium you might get everyone in, but at the moment you can’t got everyone in.
“That’s the hard part. I’ve got no answer for you. I’d love to have an answer but unfortunately I can’t give you one.”
North Melbourne great Wayne Carey was also clearly furious with the online ticketing situation
