Demand for All Ireland Drama Festival tickets crashes Athlone theatre's website
The level of demand for tickets to this year's RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone caused the website of the Dean Crowe Theatre to crash this morning (Thursday).
Tickets went on sale online, at deancrowetheatre.com, at 10am today. Sales from the venue's box office were due to start at 12 noon.
However in a Facebook post at 11am, the Dean Crowe Theatre wrote: "Our website has crashed. Please call 09064 92129 to book tickets for the Drama Festival."
At the time of writing, visitors to the website who try to buy tickets are being met with an error message saying: "Resource Limit Is Reached. The website is temporarily unable to service your request as it exceeded resource limit. Please try again later."
This year's festival will run from May 2 to May 10. It will be the twentieth year in which RTÉ has been the title sponsor of the prestigious event.
The nine plays being performed by the finalists this year are as follows:
* Bridge Drama (Wexford) will perform The Wake by Tom Murphy on Thursday, May 2.
* Wexford Drama Group will perform How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel on Friday, May 3.
* Ballyduff Drama Group (Waterford), directed by Ger Canning, will present The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth on Saturday, May 4.
* Prosperous Dramatic Society (Kildare) will perform A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller on Sunday, May 5.
* First-time qualifiers Clontarf Players (Dublin) will premiere Radium Girls by D.W. Gregory on Monday, May 6.
* Dalkey Players (Dublin) will present The Crucible by Arthur Miller on Tuesday, May 7.
* Newpoint Players (Down) present In the Shadow of the Glen: Reimagined (after JM Synge) on Wednesday, May 8.
* First-time qualifiers Ballycogley Players (Wexford), directed by Pat Whelan, will perform Out of Order by Ray Cooney on Thursday, May 9.
* Ballyshannon Drama Society (Donegal) will premiere Margaret, a new Irish play by Shaun Byrne, on Friday May 10.