Rong Jun, the head of ticket sales for the Beijing Olympics was sacked after the computer system crashed after receiving 20 million hits in the first three hours of opening.

The sale of 1.85 million tickets, available first-come, first-served, had to be abandoned after less than 24 hours on October 30.

The system, which was designed to handle 150,000 ticket sales an hour, crashed under the weight of eight million hits in the first hour. Only 9,000 tickets were sold.

Rong Jun, in tears, made a public apology. Not enough. Now he is out.

Mark you that seems fair enough. Anyone who thought a system handling 150,000 tickets an hour would handle the rush — expecially in China where this is something of a ritual — is plainly a few fen short of a yuan.

Organizers will now use the lottery system that was used in April when the next phase of ticket sales begins on December 10. Seven million tickets for the Games, to be held on August 8-24, are available to the public. Nearly three quarters of the tickets are reserved for residents of mainland China.
Source: The Times