After years of experimentation, Tennis Australia has confirmed it has finally nailed the full Ticketmaster experience in a live setting, with thousands of fans at Melbourne Park spending hours standing still, trying unsuccessfully to refresh themselves and slowly going mad.

Organisers said the on-ground entry system was designed to bring the same familiar confusion and despair Australians have come to expect from buying tickets online.

“Fans told us they loved the unpredictability of Ticketmaster’s digital queues. So we thought, why limit that to the internet? Why not let people enjoy it physically, in 34-degree heat, with the added opportunity to buy overpriced water?” a Tennis Australia spokesperson said.

Under the new system, patrons are placed into a queue that does not visibly move, does not provide time estimates, and occasionally splits into two smaller queues that both turn out to be wrong. Some fans reported being redirected three times, only to end up exactly where they started, but older.

Others praised the authentic touches, including security staff who don’t know what’s happening but are very confident about it, and intermittent announcements explaining that delays are “temporary”.

Tennis Australia also confirmed the queue randomly promotes some people ahead of others for no discernible reason, in order to accurately recreate the feeling of watching someone who arrived later somehow get in first.

“We’re just thrilled people are saying it feels exactly like Ticketmaster,” the spokesperson said. “That’s how you know you’ve done it right.”

Local fan Andrew Humphries said he had been in line for three hours. “At first I was frustrated, but then I realised this is exactly what happened when I tried to buy Taylor Swift tickets. It’s nostalgic, really.”