My Harry Potter and the Cursed Child booking nightmare

Hours in the queue for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child left us with a disappointed teenager, frustrated parents, and no tickets. Failures in the booking system have left even the most committed Harry Potter fans ticketless.

Yesterday at 11am we were waiting by the phone, ready to be among the first in the queue for tickets for the much-anticipated JK Rowling play based on a grown up Harry, working for the Ministry of Magic, and his middle son Albus Severus.

We weren't naive going into this. The play may not be opening until May next year, we may be among those who pre-registered to buy tickets before they go on sale to the general public, the ticket prices may be high, and the structure of the play may require you to buy two separate tickets for two shows, but we knew it wouldn't put the die-hard fans off, and that we'd need to be quick to secure our tickets.
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Failure

Several hours later, however, we were left with the distinct impression that being Harry Potter fans really shouldn't be this hard. We started in the queue just a few thousand from the front, and progressed with frustrating sluggishness. When we finally made it to the front of the queue, the cheapest tickets had sold out, so we were left with just those priced at £130. We ditched the idea of a whole family outing, prioritised the two obsessive fans, chose tickets, and clicked to buy them.

At that point, the system kicked us out. In fact, it kicked us right back into the queue - by which time tens of thousands of people had joined, and we didn't stand a chance.

It wasn't just the frustration borne of the fact that we couldn't get tickets: there was also the fact that we had known it would be impossibly busy and that demand would be in the tens of thousands, and we took account of that to ensure we still got tickets.

Whoever, designed the website, and payments system clearly failed to do this.

You could argue that this is hardly the end of the world, and that fans have entirely lost their sense of perspective when they start tearing their hair out over missing out.

You'd be quite right.

However, anyone who has even looked forward to something for months, or queued for hours for something with their children, knows that it can be hard to recall the bigger picture if they are thwarted at the last.

What can fans do?

Like all the other disappointed fans we checked eBay, but given that tickets were selling for £1,000 or more - and the producers have warned that buying a second-hand ticket would mean you were turned away at the door - it didn't feel worth the risk.

All we can hope is that the system is improved for when we plunge back online to join the queues for the second trench of tickets (for tickets to see shows between next September and the following January).

Otherwise there's a risk of muttered cursing all round.