The Walmart Arkansas Music Pavillion's grand opening concert on June 7, featuring county music star Blake Shelton, sold out Friday (May 9) in fewer than three hours.
More than 25,000 people requested grand opening concert tickets to the show at the new AMP site in Rogers. The site has a seating capacity of 7,000, according to a news release from spokeswoman Beth Bobbitt.
The AMP announced the grand opening concert in a news release on Thursday (May 8).
Tickets were priced at $5 and $10, with Walmart covering the cost of the concert, Bobbitt said in Friday's news release. Proceeds from ticket sales will go to local charities.
Many fans who wanted tickets posted negative comments on the AMP's Facebook page on Friday, expressing disappointment that the online queue system for allocating tickets did not operate properly, forcing people down on the ticket list who had been near the top of the queue.
Kassi Noisewater said she set her alarm early to get Blake Shelton tickets, only to become frustrated when the server crashed.
"I waited and waited and waited and waited for a long time," Noisewater said, "Eventually it just said that all the tickets were sold out, just out of the blue, I don't know where it came from or what happened, but it did."
Noisewater said she was number 1259 in line and her number kept getting smaller, then the screen disappeared.
Hesten Ogden said his girlfriend was excited about the tickets, and as of Friday night he wasn't sure if they would be going to the June concert.
"She was telling me she was getting tickets and asked me if I wanted to go, and I said of course I'd go with her and now I don't know...we are hoping still though I guess," Ogden said.
On its Facebook page, the AMP said it increased the size of its website server to remedy the problem. "The volume has been overwhelming and we are trying to move things through as quickly as we can," the AMP said on its Facebook page.