Dozens of dedicated sports fans took their place in the queue at Wellington's Michael Fowler Centre

The Hurricanes will play Saturday's Super Rugby final in front of a full house – but that won't be much consolation to hundreds of fans who missed out on tickets.

Their dismay turned to anger when they discovered Trade Me auctions offering tickets for the match at Westpac Stadium for more than $400 each.

Tickets to the Hurricanes' title match against South African side the Lions were snapped up in minutes after ticketing agency Ticketek put them on sale to the general public at midday on Tuesday.

MAARTEN HOLL/FAIRFAX NZ Rhonda Samoa was one of the lucky ones, having queued outside the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington since midnight.

But many who missed out expressed anger after seeing several tickets for sale on Trade Me a short time later at inflated prices.

READ MORE: * Hurricanes promise more tickets, more seats as scalpers cash in

By 1pm, bidding on two bronze tickets, with a face value of $70 for the pair, had reached $230.

KATARINA WILLIAMS/ FAIRFAX NZ Fans queue at the Michael Fowler Centre for tickets to the Super Rugby final, though many missed out.

One seller claimed he could provide as many as seven tickets for keen bidders, despite fans being able to purchase only four each on Tuesday.

Mark Dorward took the day off work to buy four tickets for himself, his parents and his nephew.

He began queuing at a Paper Plus store in Lower Hutt at 9am. Two of the three people ahead of him got tickets, while the third could get access only to single seats, but Dorward went home empty-handed.

"One of the most frustrating things was that I took time off work to get tickets. Ticketek have got a problem, and they have to do something to address that problem," Dorward said.

@Ticketek_NZ Yep. Same crap as last year. Completed booking then booted off the website. @Hurricanesrugby use a different provider next time — Textually Active (@AstroPuss) August 2, 2016

@Ticketek_NZ Will you be handling this as poorly as you did last year, or can we long-suffering loyal fans actually hope to get tickets? — Textually Active (@AstroPuss) August 1, 2016

Dozens of fans also took their place in the queue at Wellington's Michael Fowler Centre.

By 12.15pm they were told tickets had sold out, though it appeared some who remained in the queue were still able to get some.

​Malcolm Mashingaidze​ was rewarded after camping out for tickets since 7am.

"I missed out last year," he said. "I tried online last year, but then I knew they always have a dedicated number of tickets to be hard-sold over the counter.

"I'd rather guarantee getting tickets by coming here."

Tayla Whitton, 20, and Shannen Reddin​, 21, also succeeded by queuing. "We missed out on tickets last year by going online, and we didn't want that to happen again," Reddin said.

HURRICANES TAKE ACTION

Hurricanes Rugby said only 10 per cent of tickets to last week's semifinal were bought at ticket outlets. Of the rest, 60 per cent were bought online, 15 per cent by mobile, and the remainder were allocated to members.

Hurricanes chief executive Avan Lee said on Tuesday that the franchise was aware of some tickets appearing on Trade Me, and had already taken action.



"We have technology that allows us to cancel any ticket illegally put up for resale, and we have a team of people reviewing auctions that contravene the terms and conditions of purchase."

Trade Me spokesman Paul Ford said about 25 finals ticket listings were being monitored by its policing team on Tuesday night.

For last year's final, also in Wellington, about 400 tickets turned up on the site. "While it attracted a lot of attention, it was a storm in a teacup, given 99 per cent of tickets were acquired from another source," Ford said.

He believed there should be more scrutiny on how event promoters controlled supply, "to make sure the most deserving fans get access to tickets to their most cherished events".

This could involve requiring ID be presented at the entrance, running an official secondary market, selling tickets both online and offline in a fair way, selling tickets "officially" via Trade Me to counter unofficial scalpers, restricting the number of tickets that could be sold to one person, or not distributing tickets until close to the start of the event.