Faced with a deluge of bookings for its island-hopping trails, the Singapore HeritageFest website had to shut off its registration and resorted to balloting tickets as all available slots were oversubscribed.

The Singapore HeritageFest website had opened for registration at midnight on July 1, 2014, but closed for an hour later because it could not handle the overwhelming response from the public, who wanted to get on the island-hopping trails really badly.

In fact, some users already had trouble entering the site 30 minutes before midnight.

And users who made it onto the site kept getting error prompts when they tried to sign on to programmes, prompting the organiser National Heritage Board to shut down the online registration and use email bookings instead.

This resulted in angry outbursts on the Singapore HeritageFest Facebook.

The organisers were apparently caught off-guard, as this overwhelming response was unexpected. Tours required three days to fill during last year's festival, festival director Angelita Teo told The Straits Times on July 2, 2014.

NHB subsequently announced it will work with partners such as Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore to open up more slots beyond the 10-day festival that runs from July 18 to 27.

However, just two days in, it appears that the visits to Pulau Satumu, Kusu island, Sentosa's Tanjong Rimau and St John's, Lazarus and Seringat Islands have all been fully booked.

It is the first time in the event's 11-year history that these trails are being organised.

The focus for this year's event will be on highlighting a lesser-known fact about Singapore's island heritage, where the island-state is actually made up of more than 70 islands.

If you want to find out more about the other 60-plus different activities in this year's festival, check out the website: http://www.heritagefest.org.sg/SHFPortal/

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