Olympic Ticketing System Crashes

Tickets sales for next year's Olympic Games in Beijing were suspended for a week on Tuesday after the ticketing system crashed under the weight of Chinese sport fans looking to snap up tickets for the eagerly-anticipated event.
A lottery in June for the first round of 1.6 million tickets went smoothly enough. But the offer of 1.8 million tickets on a first-come, first-served basis resulted in (arguably predictable) chaos. Customers eager to get their hands on tickets jammed phone lines with an estimated two million calls and queued around the block at banks.
[...]
The organising committee has apologised for problems caused after the ticketing centre underestimated demand. Tickets sales were suspended until Monday to allow time for a more robust ticketing system to be put in place.