An Olympics tickets alert Twitter feed which tried to fill up thousands of empty seats at Olympic events is up and running again after being shut down by Ticketmaster over the weekend, the Guardian reported.
Ticketmaster had @2012TicketAlert suspended in an attempt to spot and catch potential ticket solicitors who may be going through the website for tickets. The Twitter account was originally set up by web developer Adam Naisbitt so he could get seats to see his fiancee, a gymnast, perform. Thousands of people protested the account being closed, and Naisbitt even appeared on the BBC.
Naisbitt contacted Ticketmaster and the two were able to come up with a solution.
“Once Adam Naisbitt approached Ticketmaster and Locog, and we were able to establish that the activity was legitimate, we discussed with him the best way to re-enable access without compromising the performance of the website or the experience of consumers,” a Ticketmaster spokesperson told the Guardian.
@2012TicketAlert now appears under a whitelist and Ticketmasterhas unrestricted the Twitter feed in an effort to sell as many tickets to Olympic events as possible.
The Twitter account gave tens of thousands of people the opportunity to find last-minute tickets to Olympic events; they even have an account set up for the Paralympics. Naisbitt doesn’t know exactly how many people have gotten tickets through his alerts, but he has received hundreds of thankful messages.
“I’d really hoped to get opportunity to publicly thank the thousands of people in the Twitter community who stood up to LOCOG and TicketMaster and won out – you guys secured an outstanding win and it just goes to show the power of what used to be the silent majority now they have platform to become the vocal majority,” Naisbitt wrote on the 2012 Ticket Alert website. “Many have criticised these games for being about corporations and money – but I think the past two days have really shown they’re about the people.”
Photo via Twitter