The organisers of Gamercon have defended the queuing time to get into the gaming convention in Dublin yesterday as "to be expected with an event of its scale".
Ticket holders criticised the event after being left outside in the rain for hours on Saturday because the venue was full.
Very angry customers at #GamerCon #gamerconDublin who paid for tickets online and we're left queuing for 2 hours only to be turned away pic.twitter.com/268C0jm2lI
— Brendan Hughes (@brendanhughes) March 18, 2017
In a statement, the organisers admitted that there were challenges with the queue on Saturday and they have refunded people who did not want to wait.
Gamercom said that issues inside the venue are the responsibility of the Convention centre and outside of their control.
Organisers of GamerCon in Dublin have offered refunds to ticket holders who could not get in because of over-crowding concerns pic.twitter.com/IIJvmM9rja
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) March 18, 2017
"GamerCon had 21,600 attendees through its doors over the course of this weekend. 11,000 on Saturday 18th and 10,600 on Sunday 19th," stated GamerCon founder Ferdi Roberts.
"We clearly had challenges with queuing on Saturday.
"When I was informed of this I made the decision to offer a refund to attendees who were outside and did not wish to queue further.
"We communicated this offer in person at the event, via social media and via our phone app.
"Having debriefed from Saturday, a number of important changes were instituted based on the day’s experience with the result that there were minimal delays in queues outside on Sunday, with most attendees experiencing between 30 and 45 minutes queuing into the venue, which we feel is to be expected with an event of this scale.
"There were also issues with queues within the building.
"This was not under GamerCon’s direct control – the Convention Centre Dublin are responsible for people management and public safety within their building.
"The Convention Centre Dublin were fully aware of the ticket sales and expected numbers of attendees.
"It should also be noted that capacities and ticket sales were discussed and jointly agreed with our venue partner the Convention Centre.
"As previously stated, we will be proactively dealing with all refund requests in the coming week and will be in contact with these ticket holders individually over the next five working days."
Orla McDonnell said that she was left waiting outside for over two and a half hours in the rain.
"The only reason why we moved up in the queue was people had walked out of the queue," she said.
"Because people were coming away from the front door and security was telling us that it over capacity."