‘Please persevere!’ Peter Kay reassures fans there are ‘plenty’ of tickets available for his upcoming tour after website crashed within seven MINUTES of them going on sale for a whopping £1k
Peter Kay’s fans have received an apology after the website assigned to release tickets for his first tour in ten years crashed within minutes of going live.
The hugely popular comedian, 49, is set to perform once a month at London’s O2 Arena as part of a surprise stand-up tour running from December to August 2023.
After the 02 Priority website set up for pre-sale crashed, leaving thousands of fans scrambling to book tickets, concert promoter SJM issued an apology and reassured buyers plenty of tickets will be available.
Fans were also left shocked after tickets began to appear online for as much as £1,000.
Mishap: Peter Kay’s fans have received an apology after the website assigned to release tickets for his first tour in ten years crashed within minutes of going live
A statement from the promoter was posted to Peter’s Twitter account and read: ‘Message from SJM Concerts.
‘We’d like to acknowledge and apologise for a number of technical issues our customers experienced while trying to buy tickets for Peter Kay’s upcoming live tour via the O2 priority pre-sale earlier today.
‘SJM would like to reassure customers that substantial provision has been put in place for the main ticket on-sale this Saturday 12th at 10am.
‘Plenty of tickets will be available throughout the day so please persevere and please buy from official ticket outlets listed on the attached link.’
Gigs: The hugely popular comedian, 49, is set to perform once a month at London’s O2 Arena as part of a surprise stand-up tour running from December to August 2023
After the mishap, one prospective attendee raged on social media: ‘O2 priority website crashed and not working just as Peter Kay tickets are about to go on sale.’
While a second commented: ‘Peter Kay has crashed every app going as if getting tickets wouldn’t already be hard enough to get.’
Another wrote: ‘Peter Kay has crashed the O2 Priority app and website and the tickets aren’t even on sale yet. Love ticket stress me.’
A fourth unimpressed fan added: ‘Been on the 02 app since 8:30 for Peter Kay tickets, crashes at 9 and kicks me out, app down and website as well. Phone bills are extortionate, signals s**t and priority is even worse @O2 cheers.’ [sic]
Statement: After the 02 Priority website set up for pre-sale crashed, leaving thousands of fans scrambling to book tickets, concert promoter SJM issued an apology and reassured buyers plenty of tickets will be available
Nightmare: The O2 Priority website set-up to facilitate pre-sale tickets went down seven minutes after the dates were confirmed, leaving thousands of fans scrabbling to book seats
Fans were dealt a further blow when the Three+ app also crashed, prompting more outrage across social media.
‘What the hell…. O2 priority and Three+ are all down.. you’d have thought they would have prepared for the surge in visitors for @peterkay_co_uk tickets,’ wrote one disgruntled fan.
A second moaned: ‘O2 priority logged me out and now three+ keep logging me out every time I log back in. Gonna be a nightmare even trying to get Peter Kay tickets.’
According to Birmingham Live, some tickets are now being sold for as much as £1,000 on resale sites such as Viagogo which left fans even more frustrated.
One fan wrote: ‘How on earth are @viagogo selling Peter Kay tickets for 10 times the price when I can’t even get on the @O2 website to buy them off it’
Another said: ‘Has anyone seen the price of resale Peter Kay tickets? That’s just heartbreaking stuff. Shame on you selling site’
Expensive: According to Birmingham Live, some tickets are now being sold for as much as £1,000 on resale sites such as Viagogo which left fans even more frustrated
Fuming: Fans took to Twitter expressing their frustration over the resale tickets
Exciting! Peter announced that he is performing once a month at The O2 arena in London as part of his first stand-up tour in a decade
Get ready! The comedian co-hosted Radio 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on Wednesday morning where he revealed the very exciting news
Responding to the backlash, O2 later insisted the collapse was caused by overwhelming demand from the general public.
Sharing a statement, they wrote: ‘We’re seeing extraordinary demand for Peter Kay. We know customers are struggling to get on to our Priority website and app before 10am, we’re working on it. Please be patient, thank you.’
Kay co-hosted Radio 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on Wednesday morning where he revealed the exciting news.
It comes after the comedian, who has been largely absent from the public eye for the last four years, announced he will embark on an arena tour spanning from this December to August 2023.
Big news: It comes after Peter, who has been absent from the public eye for the last four years, announced he will embark on an arena tour spanning from this December to August 2023
London shows? Fans voiced their disappointment as the legendary funnyman did not share any London dates, with radio host Zoe playing clips of people begging him to come to the city
But fans were quick to voice their disappointment as the legendary funnyman did not share any London dates, with radio host Zoe playing clips of people begging him to come to the city.
Making their dreams come true, Kay was quick to assure fans that he will be bringing his first tour since 2010 to England’s capital with a monthly residency.
Zoe excitedly revealed he will be performing at The O2 Arena once a month from December until November 2023, with dates including December 16, January 21, February 18, March 22 and April 22 – all the way through until November 18.
As Zoe rattled off his list of dates, he revealed: ‘Nobody’s taking this in, basically I’m doing The O2 once a month!’
Amazing news: Making their dreams come true, Peter was quick to assure fans that he will be bringing his first tour since 2010 to England’s capital with a monthly residency
Getting ready! Peter (pictured in 2009) also revealed that he is doing three warm-up gigs before beginning his hotly-anticipated tour in just three weeks time
Peter also revealed that he is doing three warm-up gigs before beginning his hotly-anticipated tour in just three weeks time.
As Zoe referred to small gigs he has done in recent weeks, calling them ‘secret’ performances, he insisted that they were, in fact, very easy to find online.
‘People keep saying secret gigs, but they are not secret! I just put them online and it’s first come first served,’ he said.
Last month, he delighted audiences as he reportedly performed a ‘secret’ comedy gig for select audiences, but his public comedy performances have been few and far between in the past decade.
Return of the comedy king! Elsewhere on the breakfast show, Peter also spoke about how he created his advert, which saw him reveal his tour in the surprise announcement
Peter appeared at a theatre in Salford in October and had ‘new material’ for the lucky fans who were invited to attend.
His London residency will be part of his first live tour since 2010, when he scored the Guinness World Record for the biggest selling run of all time, playing to more than 1.2million people.
His comeback was announced during an advertisement break in the series launch of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! on ITV on Sunday.
Elsewhere on the breakfast show, Kay gave a humorous insight into how he created his surprise advert to reveal his tour on a budget.
Speaking about creating the advert, he quipped that he and his friend filmed it in 20 minutes, despite his claim that Tesco gave £12million to fund the advert.
Amazing: His residency will be part of his first live tour since 2010, when he scored the Guinness World Record for the biggest selling run of all time, playing to more than 1.2m people
The stand-up comedian joked he and his friend filmed the advert on their iPhones outside his mother’s house, admitting he borrowed the carpet he carried in the clip from a shop – later returning it.
He revealed: ‘I put an iPhone down my shorts and put it on Voice Memo, I recorded my sound, I filmed it myself!
‘Tesco spent like £12million on an advert we filmed it in like 10 minutes on two phones! We were back home in 20 minutes! It cost more to do the graphics!’
During Sunday’s advert, Kay revealed that tickets for his stand-up tour will start at just £35.
Popular: Kay is famous for hit TV shows such as Car Share, Phoenix Nights and Max and Paddy, but has largely been away from the limelight for the past four years
He said: ‘It’s good to get back to what I love doing best, stand-up comedy, and if there’s ever a time people need a laugh it’s now.
‘And with the cost of living at an all-time high, ticket prices are starting from £35 – the same price they were on my previous tour in 2010.’
Kay will begin his tour on December 2 at the Manchester AO Arena before visiting locations including Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Belfast, Newcastle, Glasgow and Dublin.
His run will end on August 11 2023 at the Sheffield Utilita Arena. Tickets go on sale November 12 at 10am.
Following the announcement, Kay’s official website appeared to crash briefly under increased online traffic.
Cancelled: The performer had been due to go on a massive tour from April 2018 through to summer 2019, but it in December 2017 pulled out due to ‘unforeseen family circumstances’
A poster for the event featured the comedian holding a sign reading, ‘Better late than never’ and described a ticket to his shows as an ‘ideal Christmas gift’.
Kay, from Bolton, has been largely out of the spotlight in recent years. He cancelled his last tour in December 2017, citing ‘unforeseen family circumstances’.
He returned to the stage in August 2021 for two special charity events to raise money for Laura Nuttall, a then 20-year-old with an aggressive type of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme.
There was also a brief return in January 2021 when he appeared on BBC Radio 2 to chat to Cat Deeley – who was filling in after Graham Norton left the station – about his love of music, mixtapes and the musical Mamma Mia.
He also made a surprise appearance at a charity screening of his series Car Share in 2018.
Main man: Fans have been clamouring for Kay to return to the stage during a ten year absence
Over the last few years, Kay has delighted fans with his hit Bafta-winning TV series Car Share and stand-up routines.
Earlier this year, he hosted his Dance For Life show seeing all the proceeds go to Cancer Research.
Kay kicked off in Manchester in April, one of his few appearances since his record-breaking The Tour That Doesn’t Tour Tour…Now On Tour, which wrapped in late 2011.
And fans were pleased with his performance as many shared their reaction on social media, with some even saying they were ’emotional’.
The event was billed as a ‘dance-a-thon party that will save lives – with Kay also taking to the DJ decks during the show.
He had previously been due to make a comeback with the series of Dance For Life shows to raise money for Cancer Research UK in April and May 2020.
Fans have been waiting years for Kay’s return to the stage, after he stepped away from the spotlight in 2017 due to ‘unforeseen family circumstances’.
Old times: The comedian greets onlookers at the 26th annual BRIT Awards in 2006
He said at the time: ‘Due to unforeseen family circumstances, I deeply regret that I am having to cancel all of my upcoming work projects.
‘This unfortunately includes my upcoming stand-up tour, Dance for Life shows and any outstanding live work commitments.
‘My sincerest apologies. This decision has not been taken lightly and I’m sure you’ll understand my family must always come first.’
The father-of-two was expected to earn up to £40million from hosting 109 nights from April 2018 until March 2019 at cities including Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, London and Dublin.
Tickets for Peter Kay’s nationwide tour go on sale on Saturday, November 12, at 10am via www.gigsandtours.com and www.ticketmaster.co.uk. While for Belfast and Dublin, tickets will be available at www.ticketmaster.ie.
Comedy genius: His new stand-up tour will begin in less than a month at the Manchester AO Arena
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