State of Origin I tickets sell out in minutes

Tickets to Townsville’s State of Origin have seemingly sold out at a rate of about 1000 a minute, with many of the 25,000 people in the online queue left with nothing. But extra tickets will soon be up for grabs.

Townsville’s historic State of Origin has sparked a buying frenzy with fanatical fans snapping up 1000 tickets a minute once seats went on sale on Wednesday afternoon.

In the first seven minutes of a members-only allocation, 7000 tickets were bought, with up to 23,000 fans queued up online for the release of tickets to the general public at 3pm.

But all seats seemed to have been exhausted by 3.02pm.

The NRL, however, has since posted on its Facebook page thatextra tickets will soon be up for grabs. Additional grandstand seating will be available in coming days, it says.

The cheapest seats – in the alcohol-free section with obscured views, started at $25, with the premium tickets going for more than $200.

Every available ticket was snapped up within 15 minutes of the general release.

A final allocation of 1800 tickets will be released early next week once the temporary seating has been installed to swell capacity from 25,000 to 27,000 for the match.

Fans also lined the streets outside the Cowboys Leagues Club to buy tickets ahead of the 3pm general release, but many were left high and dry.

Fans line up for tickets at Cowboys Leagues Club.

Many fans were left frustrated and disappointed as they were told to go online to buy their tickets because the club’s system had stopped working.

It’s unknown how many tickets were available in the first release.

“At the moment we’ve just been told the place has been sold out already,” Cowboys member Joe White said.

“I’ve been waiting here for an hour and obviously I’m disappointed because I’ve totally missed out.

“It was a once in a lifetime job for me. At my age it will never happen again.”

But not all Cowboys fans were left disappointed, with some footy tragics hitting a pot of gold.

“I jumped online right on 1pm and just kept persisting,” member Trudy Bannister said.

“I’m over the moon, I feel extremely lucky.”