World Half Marathon sells 20k starting numbers “without any website glitches”
The World Half Marathon Championships is a half marathon run organized by the International Association of Athletics Foundation (IAAF) held every two years in different cities around the world. In 2014, Copenhagen was chosen as the host city for the 20-kilometer race.
Challenge
The 2014 IAAF/Arbejdernes Landsbank(AL-Bank) World Half Marathon Championships were to attract about 30,000 Danish and international runners. The organisation expected that the 30,000 numbers would sell out fast and decided to implement Queue-it to prevent website user overload during the sale.
"Queue-it was recommended to us when we were going to sell the first 20,000 starting numbers for the World Half Marathon Championships. We knew there would be tremendous pressure on our site and that the system would probably crash."
Lene Kryger Pedersen, Competition Director, IAAF/AL-Bank World Half Marathon Championships
Solution
When sales opened, interested buyers were directed to Queue-it’s virtual waiting room, which held the excess visitors in a waiting room until the World Half Marathon Championships’s own site capacity allowed the users to enter the website. While the visitors were waiting, they were informed about their status through the communication pane and were able to carry out their purchase upon return to the ticket sales website.
Results
Utilizing Queue-it's virtual waiting room, onsales for the World Half Marathon Championships went smoothly. The website experienced continuous uptime as visitors were directed back at a rate the website’s infrastructure could support on a first-in, first-out basis.
"We are fully convinced that it was due to the waiting room that every user had a good buying experience despite the enormous website pressure. The 20,000 starting numbers were sold out in a day, without any website glitches, thanks to Queue-it."
Lene Kryger Pedersen, Competition Director, IAAF/AL-Bank World Half Marathon Championships
About The International Association of Athletics Foundation
The International Association of Athletics Foundation (IAAF) is the international athletic governing body. Founded in 1912 in Stockholm and currently headquartered in Monaco, the organization has 215 member federations across six continents.