You don't need to do a release here as you failed to obtain a lock. The message can be a bit more informative as well.
What about:
```javascript
log().error({'err': err, 'publication': publication}, 'Failed to obtain a lock so a ticket could get created'});
return callback(err);
```

It might actually not be a bad idea to shoot of an email or write something to a file on disk somewhere, as this is pretty fatal. A user will have uploaded a publication but a ticket could not be created. We should look into recovery and either
a/ create the ticket before the publication gets stored in the db (and then deal with the fall-out on our end)
b/ remove the publication and let the user know we've failed

/cc @nicolaasmatthijs