Home Affairs Bureau’s statement on 'smooth' MIRROR ticket sales in HK causes PR kerfuffle

The Hong Kong Home Affairs Bureau recently ran into a PR kerfuffle for a statement posted on Facebook where it spoke about the smooth operation of MIRROR’s latest concert tickets sales at the Hong Kong Coliseum. While the statement came soon after the ticket sales begun on Tuesday morning, over the course of the day many fans in Hong Kong complained about facing massive disruptions as they tried to purchase tickets for the boyband’s concert to be held at Hong Kong Coliseum.

Many fans took to social media and forums to complain about waiting for hours to get their hands on the tickets, while others mentioned the slow load time. Others also faced the issue of being timed out when submitting credit card details.

According to media monitoring company Meltwater, data revealed that the incident has over 3.21k mentions in total online, and triggered 32% of negative sentiments on social platforms in Hong Kong. Largely the negative sentiments derive from fans’ inability to purchase the tickets.

Impact of statement by Home Affairs Bureau

The post by the Home Affairs Bureau which was published early in the day, not long after ticket sales begun, had mentioned that the real-name registration system for Hong Kong Coliseum concert had operated smoothly.

According to the post, acting secretary for Home Affairs Jack Chan and the director of Leisure and Cultural Services Vincent Liu had paid “special attention” to the start of ticket sales, and thanked the cooperation and efforts from numerous parties for the smooth operation and adoption of the real-name registration system that was deployed to clamp down on sculpting.  

Meltwater’s data also indicated that while there wasn’t much uproar on the Home Affairs Bureau’s statement, with only a thread on LIHKG forum discussing the matter, mentions of the bureau largely came from new sources in Hong Kong.

Industry viewpoint

Commenting on incident, Francis Fong, honorary chairman of Hong Kong Association of Interactive Marketing told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that the real-name registration system for online ticketing is common, and "buyers just need to provide their names on their HKID cards for getting the tickets, and this tactic has been used to curb sculpting".

When testing the system yesterday, Fong tried accessing the site with the help of ten different devices but still not be able to reach the payment site, let alone securing seats for the concerts. 

Meanwhile, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) told Marketing Interactive that the online ticket selling system "remained normal and tickets were sold continuously” since the start of the public sale. However, “a large number of ticket buyers attempted to log into the system simultaneously, spiking the website traffic where users were not able to sign in at once.”

The department also said the real-name registration system required customers to read through a set of terms and conditions, as well as filling in their English full name, which “may cause the ticket purchase time to be longer than other performances.” The LCSD added that it always urged the public to purchase tickets via official channels to avoid fraud or losses.

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