Talk about tension.
Rather than hovering around their keyboards at home, about 20 rugby fans queued up at Dunedin's Regent Theatre yesterday to get their hands on tickets for the Super rugby final between the Highlanders and the Hurricanes in Wellington on Saturday.
What should have been a relatively stress-free wait turned into a angst-filled hour or so.
A 40-minute power cut about 2.30pm was the first hiccup.
And when Regent staff could not reconnect to the ticketing website, people started to get very nervous.
One man, who did not want to be named, turned around to the man next in line and said: ''Because the tension is getting high, if I have a heart attack the cash is in my wallet. I'll have five and then an ambulance, please.''
The laughter relieved the tension for a few seconds.
Blair Brown had been queuing since 2pm.
He was buying 23 tickets, more than the online limit.
The 22-year-old eventually emerged with his prize, but his face carried the stress of the last few hours.
''The relief is absolutely amazing,'' he said.
''It went black for a bit and looked like it had sold out. But as soon as I got to the counter there was a re-release and boom - 23 tickets in hand.''
Mark Currie (22) was so keen to secure tickets for the big game he began the queue when he arrived just before 1pm.
''We were a bit tense there, obviously.''
Not everyone left satisfied. About half the people who queued missed out.
Nationally, 26,000 seats were sold in less than a minute yesterday and Hurricanes chief executive James Te Puni said any tickets believed to have been scalped would be cancelled.
It was against the terms and conditions to resell the tickets, he said.
More tickets would be available tomorrow morning, when the balance of tickets held for members and commercial partners were released back into the public domain, he said.
Air New Zealand has put on an extra flight to cope with demand after seats for Dunedin to Wellington flights sold out in less than an hour yesterday morning.
