This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Tom Bonk got on the Sundance Film Festival's website Wednesday, like he was supposed to.
"I went through the whole process, tried to follow their instructions, and after an hour and a half I had to give up," Bonk, a Salt Lake City radiologist, said.
Bonk wasn't alone. Technical problems with the ticketing system forced Sundance officials to stop sales about 96 minutes after they started at noon on Wednesday.
This is the first time Sundance has sold passes and ticket packages online on a first-come, first-served basis. In past years, buyers would register in advance and be assigned, by lottery, a time to buy their passes.
"We've spent the last few weeks preparing for ticket sales to start today but experienced some very unfortunate, to put it mildly, technical issues beyond anything we could have anticipated," Sarah Pearce, the Sundance Institute's managing director, said in an apologetic blog post Wednesday afternoon. "We're really sorry about this and very much appreciate your patience with our systems today."
Some people were able to complete their purchases, and received email confirmation. Pearce said those sales would be honored. As for the rest, Pearce said there are plenty of passes and packages still available, and Sundance will open sales up again sometime next week — after the bugs are worked out.
A new sales date has yet to be announced. The 2016 Sundance Film Festival runs Jan. 21-31.
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