Passionate Brazilian fans sell-out IEM Rio in just three hours
Just under three hours ago, tickets for Brazil's first CS:GO Major were available for purchase and captured the attention of the entire community. Immediately, customers noted issues with the website with its long wait times. As of Today 03:00PM, parts of the website have become entirely unresponsive and it appears that all tickets for the event have been sold.
It is likely that the server shut down all incoming requests as a defense mechanism against theoretical mass bot attacks and mistook the incredible demand of Counter-Strike fans as bots.
Several community figures have even advocated for a larger venue in response to the overwhelming demand for tickets. Legendary player Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev even joked, saying that unless ESL switches the event to a football - or as us Northerners call it, 'soccer' - stadium, he would not attend.
Even getting in on the fun was the Allianz Parque, the home of Brazilian football club Palmeires. It is used to hosting several concerts, events, and has a seating capacity of 43,713 spectators which dwarfs the Jeunesse Arena's 15,430 seats.
The community has also started tweeting "#MajorNoMaracana" which means "Major in the Maracanã Stadium", referencing the legendary World Cup, Olympic, and Football stadium in Rio de Janeiro that seats nearly 80,000 spectators. While this is unlikely to ever happen, it's a fun thought and the topic has begun to trend throughout Brazil. Even the official account of the stadium took part in the fun, tweeting for the Major to be moved to itself.
We await to see if there will be a change of venue or if there will be any ticket availability in the future.
EDIT: ESL came out on Twitter to clarify that the tickets sold out within just an hour.
