Peter Kay tour tickets: Leeds fans vent frustrations as more than 400,000 wait in Ticketmaster queues

The comedian, who has been out of the spotlight in recent years, announced earlier this month that he is embarking on an arena tour starting this December and running through until August 2023. Further dates stretching through until 2024 have since been added due to the exceptional levels of demand for tickets.

The 49-year-old, who rose to fame in the early 2000s with TV shows That Peter Kay Thing and Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights, had last been due to tour in 2018 but cancelled the dates for family reasons. It means the upcoming tour – including five dates at the First Direct Arena in Leeds – will be his first in more than a decade.

As tickets went on sale from 10am on Saturday morning, Ticketmaster tweeted: "As expected, Peter Kay is super popular this morning. To make it as fair as possible, we have put everyone in a queue. Be patient and don't refresh or you'll lose your place."

The rush to secure tickets also prompted the hashtags #PeterKayTour and #Ticketmaster to begin trending on Twitter.

And there were plenty of Yorkshire Evening Post readers among the fans joining the queue for tickets as we found when we asked people on our Facebook page if they had managed to get one of the coveted spots.

Andrew Rayner landed tickets for a 2024 date in Manchester, with Paula Rayner adding: “No chance of getting any for Leeds our nearest city! Two years to go but just grateful to get some.”

Joanne Bradley said: “Logged on at 9.45am. 1,700 in queue at 10am when it went live, managed to get tickets within ten minutes - so lucky especially as I need a wheelchair space and not many of them!”

Another of those to get tickets was Ange Morris, who said: “I’m going but not till 2024. Got on straight away, half hour after they went on sale.”

Sue Lumsdon said: “Slow process with Ticketmaster, 2 hours from 41,000 to 22,000. Got on See Tickets within minutes and tickets bought within 10 mins. By far and wide a better service.”

Others were less fortunate and found themselves in queues that contained more than 400,000 people. Among them was Heidi McFaul, who said: “I forgot and went on at 11am – 222,000 people in queue. I’ve resigned myself to not getting tickets! Wouldn’t mind but I could have got priority on Thursday but site crashed.”