There was much excitement among Arsenal fans ahead of the new season, but their excitement was quelled somewhat by farcical scenes outside the Emirates Stadium ahead of their opening game of the Premier League against Nottingham Forest.
Arsenal finished a heartbreaking second in the league last season, Arsenal have bolstered their ranks with the arrival of Declan Rice one of the headline signings of the entire transfer window.
With the likes of superstar Bukayo Saka and diminutive attackers Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard all still on the books, Arsenal fans will hope that they might just see the Premier League trophy being lifted in North London for the first time in 20 years at the end of the season.
That pre-season excitement, however, was interrupted on Saturday afternoon, as a new ticketing system failed at the Emirates Stadium, causing chaos and a delay to their first game of the 2023/24 campaign.
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New ticketing system at Arsenal fails on opening day
Arsenal's Premier League opener against Nottingham Forest was scheduled to kick off at 12:30pm, with the Gunners enjoying home advantage for their return to Premier League action.
The Emirates Stadium has employed a new digital ticketing system for 2023/24, with e-tickets adopted stadium-wide for the new season.
The system sees fans load match tickets on to their "digital pass," which utilises the same NFC technology used for phone payment systems and transport "tag ons."
There were chaotic scenes about 20 minutes before kick-off on Saturday, when the ticket systems failed across the Emirates as thousands of Arsenal and Nottingham Forest fans descended upon the ground.
Estimates suggested that 35,000 fans were stranded outside, with the turnstiles largely out of action.
Kick-off was swiftly delayed by half an hour, as Arsenal officials endeavoured to get as many of those 35,000 fans into the stadium for kick-off. One friend of Balls.ie at the Emirates for Saturday's opener said that the "huge crowds" lined up outside the stadium had "no idea what was going on."
Video footage from outside the ground certainly showed as much.
Arsenal moved to full e-ticketing today and the talk outside the ground is that the system has now gone down, leading to these crowding issues.
Things surprisingly calm at the moment but tempers starting to fray slightly. For safety, hope they can open gates soon. pic.twitter.com/AeuYUcJCRq— gunnerblog (@gunnerblog) August 12, 2023
🚨 Around 35,000 fans are outside the Emirates Stadium, unable to enter the stadium.
Reason for delay in Kickoff. pic.twitter.com/rqlKwMw2fk— Red Mans (@arsenal_mans) August 12, 2023
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Furthermore, footage from inside the stadium showed the extent to which Arsenal's new ticketing system had failed, with the stadium barely looking half-full fast approaching the original kick-off time.
This was the scene at 12.15 inside Emirates Stadium. Major issues with digital ticketing system. pic.twitter.com/5mILIRVZ6Q
— James Olley (@JamesOlley) August 12, 2023
To make matters worse, the heavens opened while many fans were still stranded outside the ground.
Thankfully, by the time Arsenal and Nottingham Forest got the footballing action underway at 1pm, most fans had managed to make their way into the stadium.
Nonetheless, the organisers at the Emirates Stadium will no doubt be holding a full inquiry into how on Earth such a widespread failure of their new e-ticketing system happened on its very first outing.
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