“Unprecedented demand” was the phrase used to describe the moment tickets went on sale around the world for the latest addition to the Star Wars saga. Tickets for Star Wars: The Force Awakens went on sale Monday, October 19th and online ticket retailers crashed almost immediately. Fandango reported volume on the site spiked to almost seven times previous peak levels, while other ticket retailers such as MovieTickets.com have stated that even the addition of 40 servers could not prevent their website from crashing. Despite the chaos ticket retailers almost unanimously agree this demand is great for the film and media industries. There’s still plenty of money left in Hollywood and movie theaters will see a huge boost in traffic.
Before Monday, the largest ever one day ticket pre-sale belonged to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second installment in the Hunger Games trilogy. As you may have guessed Star Wars obliterated Catching Fire’s record by selling more than eight times the amount of tickets. In Australia ticket retailers confirmed that Star War’s 30,000 tickets sold in three hours was more than the Avenger’s 26,000 pre-sale total, of course another record shattered by Star Wars.
Analysts agree demand for Star Wars will continue and grow. Many predict Star Wars will go on to crush every opening and short term box office record, while the film may very well go on to bring in more than two billion dollars at the box office. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the seventh Star Wars movie and one of the six films Disney plans to release in their new slate of Star Wars films.