Former culture journalist Wang Siqi didn't sleep a wink Friday night. At 8 am the next morning, she turned off the drama she watched to stay awake and logged on to the Taopiaopiao mobile app, the official online platform selling tickets for nearly 600 films at this month's Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF).

After she ticked her choices, the loading page told her the system was "busy and exhausted" and to "try again later." She did, and failed.

Wang was one of the many moviegoers who were annoyed by the malfunction and voiced dissent on social media. The app gave no notices whether the system was being fixed, nor was there an immediate apology. And like many, she kept alert on her mobile, reluctantly.

Those who queued and camped outside local cinemas were not in a better situation, as their box offices relied on the very same ticketing system.

According to the Xinmin Evening News, the very first ticket was successfully sold at 9:12 am offline. Later, the system was on and off. Most online purchasers managed to secure their tickets around 11 am.

Taopiaopiao is developed by Alibaba Pictures - under the same group that manages the crush of Singles' Day, the world's largest online shopping event.

People queue inside a local cinema to buy film tickets Saturday, the first day of sale. Photos: CFP

A fiasco

It is Taopiaopiao's second time to work with the festival. Last year, alongside Gewara, the country's major cinema ticket platform, the two operators were able to sell 20,000 tickets within three minutes (though there were also minor technical complaints about Taopiaopiao). This year, Taopiaopiao had sole control.

The film festival's committee hinted that Taopiaopiao's server "might" have been attacked, resulting in usage rates "more than 10 times" larger than the previous years.

Taopiaopiao echoes this on its official Weibo account, saying there was "too much traffic."

Indeed, the festival seems more popular than ever. By 7:30 pm Saturday, about 264,000 tickets were sold. The first-day box-office sales reached 15.62 million yuan ($2.37 million), a year-on-year increase of more than 30 percent.

The glut of Internet traffic wasn't only local. Gu Yi, a film marketing professional living in Beijing, also skipped sleeping and spent four hours on the app to buy seven tickets.

"I have never seen a ticket platform that is so irresponsible, technically weak, and showing no public relations skills," Gu said.

Gu, who went to the Beijing International Film Festival earlier this year, noted that the capital's festival works with Gewara and said purchasing went smoothly.

Moviegoers book tickets online for this year's Shanghai International Film Festival.

More difficult

"But what really separates the two festivals is that SIFF has a tradition of 'locking seats.' You enter a page for seating, and you find that some are not for sale.

"Those are reserved for family members of government institutions and the like. This is unheard of in Beijing," Gu told the Global Times.

But there is one thing that Shanghai and Beijing share: scalpers.

Tickets for some of the highly anticipated screenings, which officially sell for 80 yuan, have gone up to 500 yuan in their hands.

Cinematic pilgrimage

In a Weibo post, popular opinion leader Littlecan pointed out that Chinese moviegoers' devotion to SIFF - some request leave from work to attend screenings - suggests a hunger for more than what the domestic, everyday cinemas usually offer.

The festival is one of the few occasions to catch recent foreign films that did not make the country's imported film quota, as well as classics and collections from auteurs.

But perhaps a cinematic pilgrimage can nevertheless be made without the big screen, some concede.

Designer Dou Yingqiu gave up on the festival's ticketing system, but tried to stay upbeat about it.

"The film festival just isn't in my future. But there are video-sharing websites, and my hard drive," Dou said.