Kraftwerk fans crash Tate Modern website

Modern sound (AFP/Getty Images)

Fans flocked in droves to Tate's website this morning to purchase tickets for the hotly anticipated Kraftwerk gigs at the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall.

But unfortunately the website couldn't cope with capacity and crashed, leaving a "service unavailable" message.

Tickets went on sale at 7.30am this morning for the February 2013 concerts.

A message soon appeared on the Tate website reading: "Kraftwerk at Tate Modern has just gone on sale and we are experiencing a phenomenal demand for tickets which is affecting our web server".

It continued: "Please try to buy tickets online again later, or call 020 7887 4919 to join the telephone ticketing queue."

"We have extra staff on hand today but demand is extremely high. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you, and hope you are successful in getting your tickets."

Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider began the Kraftwerk project in 1970 at their electronic Kling Klang Studio in Düsseldorf, Germany.

The gigs are causing such excitement because each night of the eight-night dates will showcase one of their studio albums in full and appear in order of their release - Autobahn (1974), Radio-Activity (1975), Trans Europe Express (1977), The Man-Machine (1978), Computer World (1981), Techno Pop (1986), The Mix (1991) and Tour de France (2003)- alongside additional compositions from their back-catalogue.

Tickets are priced at £60 each. It is not possible to acquire tickets for all eight gigs.

“In this day and age, there’s no reason why increased traffic should cause a website to crash. Sites that are selling tickets should be prepared for an influx of visitors when high profile event tickets go on sale," said Michael Allen, Director of APM for Compuware.