We hope you weren’t planning on grabbing a few tickets to Dota 2’s biggest event of the year because they went on sale earlier today and they were all gone within seconds of hitting the shop.
The International is a Dota 2 tournament organized annually by Valve Corporations (the developers of the game). Since beginning in 2011, The International has provided the Esports world with the biggest of stages, and deepest of prize pools.
This year’s competition will be held in Shanghai, China, during the middle of August. Tickets for The International 2019 (or TI9) went on sale early this morning in North America and every single ticket was picked up by those lucky fans that had early access codes. This flood of sales forced Valve to cancel the public sales period because they had no tickets left.
According to the Director of Operations for Esports organization Team Secret, Matthew Bailey, the allocation of tickets sold out in 53 seconds. Tickets for the Grand Finals day separately from the rest of the tournament also went on sale this morning at the same time and they sold out in 27 seconds.
The Chinese allocation of tickets sold on Damai for the International 2019 sold out in 53 seconds. The grand finals day sold out in 27 seconds. #Dota2
— Matthew Bailey (@Cyborgmatt) May 24, 2019
Within minutes of the sales closing, poachers and scalpers have begun reselling tickets on various websites for up to five times the face value. The whole situation has gotten a little ugly and may prove to complicate the relationship between major Esports events and China’s laws for ticket purchasing and legal scalping.
All of this happened in such a short amount of time, and it came after Valve was forced to push the sale an hour due to some malfunctions on the seller's website.
The International 2019 ticket sales start on Damai will be delayed by 1 hour
— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) May 24, 2019
Needless to say that fans have no responded positively to the wait, to the lack of meaning in the early access codes, in the lack of availability.
nice, stayed up to 3 AM got to wait in line to buy tickets, so what is the point of the code? (got to 80% of the line waiting and it said it's sold out. have this ever happen in the history of dota? (thanks to ticket scalpers, thanks to valve with this wondeful event planing)
— Xpoir (@kyowindofheart) May 24, 2019
I've attended TI since TI5, the ticket process this year is an abomination where real fans can't even get tickets. You should cancel the scalper tickets and actually let real fans buy them.
— FearlessDota (@AsianNerdPlus) May 24, 2019
I guess my presale ticket code was worthless. I sat in line for 30 mins, just as it got to the end, to be told the tickets were sold out. Good luck to people who didn't have preaccess codes...
— James Curtis (@xanxavier) May 24, 2019
And Diego here, who summed up the whole experience so perfectly well.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
— Diego Magallanes (@DiegoSwS36) May 24, 2019
The International 9 kicks off on August 15th, 2019, in Shanghai and will feature the best Dota 2 teams the world over in one of Esports’ largest prize pools ever. This year’s tournament will feature a 13 Million dollar total prize pool.
There has been no word from Valve Corporation on the issues had by fans this morning in regards to The International tickets. We will update this story as the ticket situation develops.