The Eurovision tickets website has crashed moments before they were due to go on sale.

Tickets for the 2023 live shows in Liverpool were due to become available at midday on Tuesday. 

However, minutes before, some clicking through on Ticketmaster's dedicated site were met with a "500 - Internal Server Error" message.

The city will host the 67th edition of the contest from May 9 until May 13.

Thousands of fans have been waiting in an online queue for much of Tuesday morning on the Ticketmaster site for the first time Britain has hosted the contest for 25 years. 

However, some fans who had not yet entered the digital "waiting room" before joining the queue for tickets on the website suddenly saw their screen freeze.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.