Booking Ski-for-all In Varsity Trip Record Sell-Out

This year’s Varsity Ski Trip sold out in just under 6 hours. All 3,000 places were shifted, and an additional 200 added at the last minute.

Last year’s trip sold out in a leisurely 30 hours, which was itself a shock increase on 2009, when tickets remains on sale for a full 10 days.

In scenes similar to last year, the huge rush on tickets floored the website’s servers, making the site inaccessible as the floodgates opened for booking.

Barely half an hour after booking opened, the Varsity Trip Committee e-mailed their mailing list stating: “there are currently 2,900 participants booked or in line for Varsity Trip 2011.

“If you would like to come on this years[sic] trip we advise you join the queue quickly, since we only have 3000 places.”

A familiar scene for many

“I was told to be ready because it would sell out quickly,” English fresher Ned Bartholomew told The Tab.

“But the site was so busy that it crashed about 10 minutes before booking opened, and when I got back on there were 1,000 people in the queue.”

People who’d logged on at 8am to book were still in line almost 3 hours later.

A member of the Varsity Trip committee told The Tab “We’re very happy with how popular the trip turned out and we’re sorry for any difficulties people had during booking.

“We’re confident we can make up for any problems signing up by providing the best Varsity Trip ever.”

The 3,200-strong Oxbridge contingent will descend on Val Thorens from 3rd-10th December, and all the snowy gossip will be available right here on The Tab.