30,000 tickets sold in an hour: Frenzy for Electric Avenue festival pre-sales

Thursday, 9 April 2026

Tens of thousands of people have secured tickets for themselves - and likely their friends - for Australasia’s biggest annual party.

Electric Avenue is yet to release a line-up, but people entered the online queue this morning, hoping to secure a ticket to the two-day party at Hagley Park in February, 2027.

Festival founder and managing director Callam Mitchell said about 40,000 people registered their interest in tickets within of pre-sale registration opening.

Some Aucklanders had already booked flights to Christchurch – all without knowing a single artist on the line-up.

About 45,000 people attended each of the festival’s two days this year.

Only general admission weekend and weekend VIP passes were available in the pre-sale. About a third would be reserved for the latter when the line-up was released - to give others a chance to get in on the action, Mitchell said.

Mitchell said about 30,000 tickets were sold within an hour.

“We were sitting and looking at the data with ticketmaster on a Zoom call and I think most people that tried to get a ticket would have been able to grab one,” he said.

“It’s a great measure of where the brand is sitting to know that 30,000 people have already secured ticket and come to the event without a line-up, so were pretty rapt with that.

“The other 15,000 [tickets] will go into the general release tickets … we’ll expect a bit of a frenzy.”

Mitchell said the festival will stay the same size as this year, with about 45,000 spots available for fans inside the Hagley Park party each day.

This year there were more than 50 artists, ranging from homegrown favourites Split Enz, Australian DJ Dom Dolla, to International pop sensation Kesha.

Many acts are already secured for next year’s festival, which will be released around August, he said.

However, the confidence today’s sales have brought the team means they can move ahead with even more security to over deliver, Mitchell said.

“The line-up’s looking pretty spectacular still a lot of work to do over the next few months.“

Mithcell said everything went smoothly, claiming it was the “calmest hour and half I’ve ever experienced through a pre-sale”.

While he may have been relaxed, thousands of people were waiting for their chance to secure their tickets after a issues with this year’s sales.

Organisers switched from Moshtix to Ticketmaster’s digital ticketing platform in a bid to crack down on scalpers and scammers who plagued this year’s sellout event.

By 8.30am people were sharing the news they were among the lucky ones to secure tickets.

Shayna Dixon and her partner, who secured two tickets, was 984th when they joined the queue.

“[Last year] it was just really stressful, and it was our first year going and didn’t realise how competitive it was - so we wanted to have as many opportunities as possible to get it.

“The ticketing system was much better this year,” Dixon said.

“I hope they bring another early 2000-2016 pop artist again, or Fred Again or Drum and Bass.”

Dixon secured second-tier tickets for about $370 each.

One fan paid about $2500 for six tickets.