There were heated scenes at a major gaming convention in Dublin this afternoon as hundreds of people with tickets were turned away.

GamerCon billed itself as "Ireland's largest gaming event with over 30,000 square feet of gaming and a 2,000 seater main stage show".

However hundreds of families were left queuing in the rain for hours outside the Convention Centre in Dublin with many then turned away.

Reports say 25,000 tickets were sold for the two-day event but the venue can only take 7,000 people at a time.

Some people reported queues of up to five hours getting into the event.

Didn't even get the chance to go to #gamercon because the line was SO long it went around three buildings, and the wait was more than 5HRS — Mal'therion (@Maltherion_) March 18, 2017

#gamerconDublin @GamerCon_Europe complete FARCE!! 2 hour Q in rain to be told doors closed by security as too many people inside. JOKERS pic.twitter.com/XO30TkMk7i — Andrew Dalton (@mr_13b) March 18, 2017

One frustrated gamer said: "This is a families and children event, people have been standing outside in the rain for four hours in the queue.

"Convention centre staff said there's nothing they can do, they said this size of crowd is unprecedented and completely unexpected - but they can't let anyone else in for health and safety reasons.

"The queues are wrapped all the way around the Convention Centre and the PWC building as well. There's thousands of people.

"There's a lot of very upset children who've been left standing in the rain for hours."

GamerCon said it underestimated the traffic flow and released a statement saying it would offer full refunds to those affected.

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The organisers tweeted that they were working to get the crowds moving "as quickly as poss."

The statement added: "As a first time event we underestimated the traffic flow that we forecast for the event and have very strict health and safety related capacities which we must adhere to. That temporarily impacted our ability to process the queue which resulted in longer than expected wait time for our attendees. We are managing this proactively and expect the situation to ease as the day progresses.

"We have offered full refunds to those who decide not to attend and have communicated this to attendees via mobile app and all social media channels."

Online Editors