FURIOUS Tasmanian St Kilda fans were left the colour of their scarves after being denied the chance to sit and watch their high-flying team playing in Launceston.
About 200 Saints fans queued for several hours in the rain yesterday morning only to be told there were no seat tickets left for the round 19 clash against Hawthorn at Aurora Stadium.
"We were bloody furious when we found out," said Barry Moy, who was among the fed-up fans queuing outside the Princess Theatre.
"When we were told it was standing room only it was a joke. It was a bad enough day without getting that news. I just could not believe it."
Fellow Saints fan Fiona Plummer added: "I'm shattered. I've been a Saints member for 12 years but cannot get seat tickets because it's a Hawthorn game.
"I just don't know how 15,000 tickets would sell out in five minutes. I've got a seven and four-year-old I wanted to take and you cannot stand with young kids."
Fans said for a couple of months both the AFL and Ticketmaster websites had been directing them to Launceston's Ticketmaster outlet at the Princess Theatre from 9am yesterday.
Some had been queuing for several hours for what could be the biggest AFL match played at the venue, with a line stretching into George St, when the news filtered through that no tickets remained.
Other fans were unsuccessful in attempting to get tickets online. Shortly after tickets went on sale a message on the Ticketmaster website said: "Allocation is currently exhausted."
"It's disappointing that a lot of St Kilda fans down here may miss out," said Robert Anderson, president of St Kilda's Tasmanian supporters group.
"There are a lot of Sainters in Tasmania, there always have been."
Fans were largely complimentary of the Princess Theatre staff's handling of a difficult situation.
Theatre North general manager Robin Lohrey said the problem arose because there was a central database of tickets and those queuing in Launceston were competing with other supporters ordering online and by phone.
"Some people seemed to be under the misapprehension that we were given tickets to sell and that was not the case," she said.
"The people who were going online were accessing the same database so throughout Australia it was a case of first in, best dressed. We had no control over the number of tickets available to us."
Ms Lohrey said the first few people in the queue did receive tickets, but when it became apparent no more were available, staff walked along the queue telling people what had happened.
"Some people said they had been queuing since half past six and we feel terrible about this," she said.
"These are local people and I understand why they are crabby but it is outside our control. We will give feedback to both Ticketmaster and the AFL about what happened."
Ticketmaster declined to comment while Hawthorn said taking out Hawks membership would still give fans access to tickets for the remaining two Tasmanian games.
The Hawthorn-St Kilda game is on August 8.
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