Ticketmaster botches inauguration ticket sales

Ticketmaster said Monday that the company took "responsibility" after accidentally opening the sale of tickets to the inaugural balls and parade Sunday evening.

"During testing of our email system tonight, you may have inadvertently received an invitation to purchase tickets for 2013 Inauguration events, including the Inaugural Ball or the Inaugural Parade," the company said in an email to those who had signed up for a chance to purchase tickets. "Public tickets to these events were originally scheduled to go on sale tomorrow morning — you received the email tonight in error, and Ticketmaster takes responsibility for this mistake."

In an email from inaugural committee co-chairwoman Julianna Smoot earlier in the day, the former White House social secretary said tickets would not go on sale until Monday.

But Ticketmaster said that it would honor tickets sold during the accidental window of availability. By Sunday night, the website indicated that the inaugural committee had sold out of all available tickets for the parade and ball.

"All public tickets are first-come, first-served, including those sold tonight," the ticketing giant said in the email, adding that "a significant number of public tickets were purchased this evening."

The botched sale earned the company and inaugural committee considerable ire on social media, later aggregated in a post by BuzzFeed.

Officials for the inaugural committee issued a statement Monday pointing the finger at Ticketmaster for the error.

"On Sunday evening, Ticketmaster experienced a technical error that inadvertently caused an email to go out ahead of schedule to people who had signed up for Inaugural ticketing information with an invitation to purchase public tickets for The Inaugural Ball and the Inaugural Parade," the committee said in a statement.  "The Ticketmaster website was overwhelmed, slowing the purchasing process. Ticketmaster has taken responsibility for this mistake."

This post was updated at 10:50 a.m.

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