Â鶹Éç

More than 80,000 tickets were sold for Â鶹Éç Proms concerts on the first day of booking (4 May).

This is a 900 per cent increase on the 8,000 processed on the first day of booking in 2009, and is 85 per cent of the total number processed in the first five weeks of booking last year – 297,500 were sold in total in 2009 for the two-month festival. Online, 65,000 tickets were sold, while the rest were sold by phone or in person.

Roger Wright, Director, Â鶹Éç Proms, said: "We are delighted that the Â鶹Éç Proms remains so popular and that so many people have successfully used the new booking system."

Jasper Hope, Director of Events, Royal Albert Hall, said:"The demand for the Â鶹Éç Proms, the world's greatest classical music festival, has been extremely high and the website queuing system ensures that, for the first time, customers are queued into the website fairly.

"We are delighted that more people than ever before have been able to successfully get their tickets to the Â鶹Éç Proms at the Royal Albert Hall."

Seats for seven of the 76 concerts at the Royal Albert Hall have now sold out – including the First Night (Mahler Symphony No. 8, on 16 July), Sir Simon Rattle's first concert with the Berlin Philharmonic (3 September) and Plácido Domingo's Simon Boccanegra (18 July) – though up to 1,400 £5 Promming tickets are released on the day for each concert.

Seats for the vast majority of other events are still available.

Roger Wright says: "As ever, we understand how disappointing it is for people not always to get the tickets they want.

"We have made the system fairer, but we can't make the Royal Albert Hall any bigger, so we'd like to remind people that there are still tickets available for the vast majority of events and encourage them to try for returns, come and Prom on the day, or listen and watch on the Â鶹Éç."

VB