Tickets for popular comedy star Lee Evans sold out in record time at Cardigan last week.

Fans queued from 7am, as tickets for his comic show went on sale at Theatr Mwldan on Tuesday morning, and the show was sold out within half an hour.

A Theatr Mwldan spokesman said: “We are delighted that we are able to host a performance by Lee Evans at Theatr Mwldan, this is a great opportunity for smaller venues in Wales and for Cardigan specifically.

“We experienced unprecedented demand for tickets and estimate that more than 1,300 people were trying to purchase tickets at 10am on Tuesday.

“ This makes the total demand for tickets in excess of 5,000, therefore anyone who did manage to get one of the 249 available can count themselves very lucky indeed.”

At one point all telephones lines were jammed in and out of the building, and the pre-10am demand on the theatre’s website was so heavy that not everyone was able to access the event immediately.

Under difficult and exceptional circumstances, we found a way to service customers in person (some of whom had queued from 7am), by phone, and online.

Around 120 tickets were sold online, around 100 to people who had queued, and 30 by phone.

The first online bookings completed at 10.10am, and the last at 10.31am. The online seats available were allocated in a matter of four minutes.

The theatre says comments on social media sites implying some customers had arranged to book more than four per person, as stated in the booking conditions, were ‘categorically untrue’.