Peter Kay tour tickets: Leeds fans vent frustrations as more than 400,000 wait in Ticketmaster queues

The comedian, who has been out of the spotlight in recent years, announced earlier this month that he is embarking on an arena tour starting this December and running through until August 2023. Further dates stretching through until 2024 have since been added due to the exceptional levels of demand for tickets.

The 49-year-old, who rose to fame in the early 2000s with TV shows That Peter Kay Thing and Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights, had last been due to tour in 2018 but cancelled the dates for family reasons. It means the upcoming tour – including five dates at the First Direct Arena in Leeds – will be his first in more than a decade.

As tickets went on sale from 10am on Saturday morning, Ticketmaster tweeted: "As expected, Peter Kay is super popular this morning. To make it as fair as possible, we have put everyone in a queue. Be patient and don't refresh or you'll lose your place."

The rush to secure tickets also prompted the hashtags #PeterKayTour and #Ticketmaster to begin trending on Twitter.

And there were plenty of Yorkshire Evening Post readers among the fans joining the queue for tickets as we found when we asked people on our Facebook page if they had managed to get one of the coveted spots.

Andrew Rayner landed tickets for a 2024 date in Manchester, with Paula Rayner adding: “No chance of getting any for Leeds our nearest city! Two years to go but just grateful to get some.”

Joanne Bradley said: “Logged on at 9.45am. 1,700 in queue at 10am when it went live, managed to get tickets within ten minutes - so lucky especially as I need a wheelchair space and not many of them!”

Another of those to get tickets was Ange Morris, who said: “I’m going but not till 2024. Got on straight away, half hour after they went on sale.”

Sue Lumsdon said: “Slow process with Ticketmaster, 2 hours from 41,000 to 22,000. Got on See Tickets within minutes and tickets bought within 10 mins. By far and wide a better service.”

Others were less fortunate and found themselves in queues that contained more than 400,000 people. Among them was Heidi McFaul, who said: “I forgot and went on at 11am – 222,000 people in queue. I’ve resigned myself to not getting tickets! Wouldn’t mind but I could have got priority on Thursday but site crashed.”

Levi Nicole share a screenshot of her place in the queue at 12.28pm, showing there were 416,247 people ahead of her on the website.

The queue was even longer for Paul Mchale-Webster, who said: “I went on and was at 437,968 an hour after the wife had been at 8,000 and still couldn't get 2 tickets for any Leeds dates. Absolute joke how the ticket system lets priority buy 10 tickets, then minimal left and most of those priority will be sold on at stupid prices.”

Some fans made it to the front of the queue and onto the booking pages, only to be let down by technical glitches. Sarah Gill said: “We got through at 10am, paid for the tickets with PayPal for 5 of us, it then redirected us back to Gigsandtours and threw us out!”

Scott Clarke said: “Three hours to finally get through to booking page to find no tickets at all on chosen dates. But no option to switch dates or venues once online!”

And others who managed to buy tickets were in for a surprise when the tickets landed in their inboxes. Leanne Armitage said: “My daughter has booked this morning for January. The confirmation come through but when she received the email, she was informed that Ticketmaster had redirected her and booked her tickets for June 2024… she’s not a happy bunny.”

Tracy Jane Gregory said: “Took us an hour, thought I paid for March 2023 but when tickets came through was March 2024.”

Meanwhile, Ben Ingram said: “We got through and it offered £230 VIP tickets… he is good but not that good.”

Jane Woodford said was was “not desperate enough to queue for hours” to get tickets, with Tracy Robinson taking a similar view. She said: “Had a look at 10am prompt.. No way I was queueing with thousands in front of me so I'm off't supermarket for some garlic bread, garliccccccc breaddddd . I'll just sit & laugh with myself for a while while I eat it and think of PK and all the time and money I saved... Sorry to say, he's good but he's not THAT good.”

But of all the things that angered fans the most, it was the ticket touts hoping to make some quick cash by snapping up tickets and then immediately selling them on for hugely inflated prices. Tickets were being listed on the ViaGogo resale site for as much as £1,000 each after Thursday’s pre-sale.

Aimée Louise said: “In regards to ticket resales, it’s about time these ticket touts are banished for good. Tickets being flogged at 10x the price. It’s an insult towards genuine fans! There needs to be a law created for resale tickets to only be sold at face value price!”

Hannah Marie Green said: “I got to the front of the Gigs and Tours site, it crashed on me then front of Ticketmaster cue and same again. “Something went wrong”. So annoying that people are then selling them on for £100+ profit.”