"Welcome to New York"

Bill MacCormick, who was the Official Site Webmaster before Ultrastar took over the reins, posted this from Tony Smith on the messageboards.

I just spoke to Tony Smith in NY.  'We've been mugged, welcome to New York', were his words.

The virus that attacked Ultrastar's computers, triggered at 9.59 am ET yesterday, was a concerted attempt by a ticket scalper, frankly a crook, to hijack the pre-sale.  It took over 8 hours for Ultrastar's technicians to get the system back on line such was the severity of the attack.  They have never been attacked in this way before which is one of the reasons it took them so long to get back on-line.

Apparently Ticketmaster was the targets of similar attacks a few years ago but they've not seen anything like this since.  Ticketmaster are, however, helping Ultrastar so that they can ensure similar problems do not occur again.

Tony asked me to assure fan clubs members that tickets for their pre-sale have been ring-fenced for every concert and there should be more than enough to satisfy demand.