BBC Radio 1 presenters were forced to halt competition calls from listeners after experiencing ‘technical difficulties’ during their Radio 1 Big Weekender ticket giveaway

BBC Radio One Big Weekend competition suffers technical issues(Image: Redferns)

BBC Radio One’s Big Weekend event plummeted into chaos after the phone line competition application system completely crashed. Fans rushed to call the number in order to win tickets for the Big Weekend event but found phone lines had gone down, leaving them devastated.

Explaining the technical issues, Nat O’Leary told fans: “We are experiencing technical difficulties with our phone lines at the moment unfortunately so we cannot run the competition at the moment.” In addition, Ore Olukoga added: “We can’t but we will let you know as soon as we have the phone lines up and running again and we’ll get the competition on very soon.” Later in the show, the phone lines were back up-and-running again.

Tom Grennan is one of the stars who’ll be performing

On the Radio One Big Weekend website, it instructed fans to call the competition phone line 03700 100 100 during a ten minute registration window.

Radio One phone handlers were set the task to receive calls from hopefuls and conduct “eligibility checks” which included asking entrants “how much do you want to win this prize?”

On the back of their answer, the handlers will then score the entrants’ answers based on their “passion for the prize.”

Following the initial elimination process, those with the highest scores will then appear on air to play the game “name the artist” music quiz.

And this involved fans identifying the music artist in a short clip with only five seconds to answer.

If then lucky entrant failed to answer within the allocated time, or answered incorrectly, they failed to win tickets to the coveted event.

The celebrity artists that are due to take part in the annual event include rapper Aitch, AJ Tracey, Inhaler, Wolf Alice, who will perform on May 24.

Back in January, BRIT award winner Sam Fender was announced as the headliner on the main stage, along with Myles Smith and Blossoms.

The annual music event will take place at Liverpool’s Sefton Park over two days between May 23 and May 25.

Other artists performing on Friday 23rd include Tom Grennan, Biffy Clyro, Nia Archives, Confidence Man, Barry Can’t Swim.

Myles Smith described performing at the annual event as “unreal”. He added: “Big Weekend was always a dream of mine, and to be on the line-up again is insane.”

Messy singer Lola Young, who has achieved global recognition, is also set to perform at the annual weekender and described that it was going to be a “messy” affair, which is a nod to her hit song.