Ticketmaster deny any fault in Radiohead's US ticket rush

Ticketmaster deny that anything went wrong when tickets for Radiohead's American shows went on sale, at shop counters in New York and Los Angeles or on their website. Every ticket was gone within four minutes, a Los Angeles spokesman told NME, and only the band can fix it by playing more shows or larger venues. Up to 1,000 outlets in New York were taking calls from across the country, he said, so the people queuing outside were bound to be disappointed.

Fans have been writing to nme.com in large numbers. Some queued at New York shops for the Roseland Ballroom show from opening time and were told the system was down; others could not get an order through online. Mike Lewis of Albany, New York, who hit the same wall buying Smashing Pumpkins tickets recently, says the fault is the server's.

The problem lies in the fact that the Ticketmaster purchasing server cannot handle a high enough capacity of transactions at once.

Mike Lewis²

Counter sales carried on while the website was turning him away, Lewis points out, and online buyers should be held in a queue in the order they asked. Fans in Los Angeles say the same of the Greek Theatre show on 20 October, where one pair on eBay has drawn a bid of $5,100. The scramble comes as Kid A goes to the top of the Billboard chart.

Ticketmaster's spokesman has one tip for anyone wanting good seats, which is to go to a show nobody else wants to see.