Telstra’s BangTango Crumbles Under Bon Jovi Ticket Demand

Telstra's partnership with new premium ticket seller BangTango has had a less-than-brilliant start to its first stadium tour, with the website collapsing under the weight of the demand.

The telecommunications giant had made its latest move into music as a foundation partner of BangTango and is offering Telstra users exclusive pre-sales and ticket opportunities as part of its 'Thanks' program. Bon Jovi, promoted by Dainty, is its first stadium tour partnership. Tickets were made available for as little as $35.

With tickets released at 9am this morning, as of 11am the BangTango website was still offline, with fans venting their frustration on the social media accounts of Bon Jovi, BangTango and Dainty.

BangTango's founder Dan Popic has not returned theMusic.com.au's calls this morning while a Telstra representative offered a statement through email.

The Dainty Group have posted on Facebook, “As you know the Bon Jovi pre-sale tickets are available today. Unfortunately the BangTango website, where you purchase your tickets is currently experiencing heavy traffic and some customers are unable to log in. Tickets are still available, and the pre-sale goes for 48 hours. We will keep you updated and let you know as soon as it is back up and running.”

Bang Tango offered, “Due to a huge amount of traffic, our website is experiencing technical difficulties. We are currently working on the problem. Tickets are still available, and the pre-sale goes for 48 hours, so we will keep you updated.”

On BangTango's page one user replied “Are u serious? This is pathetic! I have never missed out on Bon Jovi tickets and I hope there are tickets left! And they better be good ones! I'm fuming! I've wasted over 2 hours at work trying to log on!”

On Telstra's another vented, “Telstra, if we had to sign up to use the BangTango website, we should have been able to do this before the presale. Your email with the instructions and code also didn't tell us we needed to sign up. It is very frustrating but I appreciate the update.”

UPDATE: A representative from Telstra has offered the following statement to theMusic.com.au: "Due to unprecedented demand, customers are experiencing issues purchasing tickets for the Bon Jovi Pre-Sale. We are working to have the pre-sale purchase back up and running as soon as possible and will update customers on the follow sites: facebook.com/Telstra24x7, twitter.com/Telstra, telstra.com/music.”

As of 12:10pm BangTango's website appears to be online. Fans are now reporting that their code has been 'used too many times' to purchase tickets through the site.

@themusiccomau @drummedia @bangtango @telstra @bonjovi No - it wont let me buy tickets. Says I've used my code too many times.

— David Fisher (@davefisher74) May 13, 2013