The Hong Kong Palace Museum suspended on-site ticket sales for its Egyptian-themed special exhibition for four-and-a-half hours on Sunday due to an overwhelming number of visitors.

Ticket sales at the museum were suspended at 11am and resumed at 3.30pm.

To cater to visitors, the museum said the opening hours of the exhibition, “Ancient Egypt Unveiled: Treasures from Egyptian Museums”, will be extended from 6pm to 8pm on Sunday.

A visitor from Macau said she planned to take her son to see the artefacts, but that she was disappointed when on-site ticket sales were suspended.

“We originally planned to buy tickets on site and we never thought the tickets would be unavailable here,” she said.

“We could only check if there are any tickets left on travel apps, because my son was extremely disappointed and unhappy. We have travelled all the way here and we don’t want to return disappointed, so we are trying to see if we can still buy tickets on these apps.”

She also said the museum should have informed visitors about the suspension earlier in the morning.

Meanwhile, the museum apologised after crowds had to wait in long queues for the exhibition the day before.

It said the exhibition received an overwhelming response on Saturday too, adding it would review the procedures and deploy additional staff to assist on-site operations in future.

The exhibition opened on Thursday.