Apple announces WWDC 2012; tickets sell out in under two hours

It’s that time of the year again: Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where the company gives us a sneak peak at its upcoming iOS and OS X releases. This morning, Apple announced that this year’s event would begin on June 11, and less than two hours later, tickets had already sold out.

Apple promises this year’s event is “the week we’ve all been waiting for.” In addition to a sneak peek at iOS 6 and the progress the company is making with OS X Mountain Lion, the event will also give developers a fantastic opportunity to learn from Apple’s own engineers, with 100 technical sessions and 100 hands-on labs focused on a whole range of technology-specific topics.

WWDC is also the home of Apple’s annual Design Awards, which recognize iOS and Mac OS X apps that “demonstrate technical excellence, innovation and outstanding design.” The event has also been home to Apple’s latest iPhone unveiling in recent years. However, the company broke away from that tradition last year and chose to announce the iPhone 4S in October instead.

While there may not be a new iPhone, then, WWDC is still going to be a fantastic week for developers. The only problem is, if you haven’t already bought your tickets, you’ve missed out: This year’s sold out in less that two hours.

That’s right, less than two hours after Apple issued its press release, all tickets were sold out — except, of course, for those reserved for “special attendees” and the 150 reserved for students. That’s pretty incredible when you consider that there are usually around 5,000 WWDC tickets available, and that Apple is selling them at $1,600 (£999) each. That means that the company raked in $8 million (approx. £4.6 million) in less than 120 minutes. What other company could make that kind of cash selling tickets to an event?

It’s great news for Apple, but it’s not great news for half of America. You see, Apple’s announcement came at around 1:30 p.m. GMT today, or 9:30 a.m. EST. That means those living in Europe or on the East Coast of the U.S. had chance a to bag tickets. However, those living on the West Coast, where it was just 5:30 a.m. when Apple’s announcement went live, didn’t even have chance to get out of bed before all the tickets were sold out.

What’s even crazier is that Apple’s headquarters are located in California. So not even Apple was awake when those tickets sold out.

Were you lucky enough to bag yours?