How did people book festival tickets pre-internet?

[nigelreocoker]

This is probably going to sound very naive, but how was it done? Or at least to the scale that tickets would sell out extremely quick?

Was it really just by phone?

I'm not exactly a kid by the way, 21, just sorta 2006/7ish when I first took interest in going to gigs and festivals buying on the internet was the norm, at least for my age group!

[kaosmark2]

Tickets didn't sell out quite as quickly back then either. Festivals were much more of a niche market. Many people just turned up to the festival and bought them there.

Otherwise, phone, local record stores, basically all the ways that can be done now.

[thetime]

Cheque, that's how I booked my first few times at Glastonbury festival.

Don't think you could get away with waiting the clearing dates now.

Other than that record stores used to sell tickets and travel.

Edited May 2, 2014 by thetime

[Guest]

In the 60's and later (for a while), there wasn't much chance of a festival selling out (as far as I remember..!), so there was no problem with getting tickets. You got them in advance if you wanted to save a few shillings ( ) , or you just turned up.

For everyday gigs, you'd sleep in the street overnight to secure your ticket. Festivals were never really an issue until after the internet was in existence, and by then it was the 'net that took over

[t8yman]

This post is about gigs, not festivals, so feel free to ignore me!

Living where I do, and never having ANY gigs at all in our city that were worth going to, we had a company in the city center who sold tickets and travel to gigs, you would pay £17 or whatever to go and see Metallica at Bradford St Georges Hall (one of my first gigs - 26/9/1988!) and they would take you on a bus and bring you back. The only way we knew about gigs was in magazines like Kerrang!, and in their (the bus/gig company) advert in the local paper.

It was archaic come to think of it, but on the plus side, we made some great mates that way, as every metalhead would go to pretty much every metal gig, so every coach trip was like a reunion.

As an aside, whilst googling the date for the above gig, I came across someone's flicker page with loads of photos from the gig! Its https://www.flickr.com/photos/47142214@N00/sets/72157594236863992/ if anyone is bothered.

[Chas]

For the big sell out shows in the 70s like Pink Floyd etc. it was a bit of a lottery if you couldn't get to the box office or one of the ticket agencies like Keith Prowse or Stargreen when they went on sale. We used to send a stamped addressed envelope and cheque/postal order to the venue and pray. Sometimes we were lucky and tickets arrived or we got our cheque returned with a note saying they'd sold out. When the stamped addressed envelope landed on the doormat you had no idea if you were lucky until you opened it and that could be weeks later.

We usually bought festival tickets the same way but as others have said I don't recall any of the ones we went to back then selling out.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Chas

[russycarps]

Record stores. I think the first Glastonbury I got tickets off the internet was 2004. I've no idea how we got 2003 tickets. Phone maybe?

[grumpyhack]

Record stores. I think the first Glastonbury I got tickets off the internet was 2004. I've no idea how we got 2003 tickets. Phone maybe?

Edited May 3, 2014 by grumpyhack

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

I used to get mine from the HMV record store in Birmingham. No queues or anything. You just walked up to the counter and bought one (or as many as you liked).

[thetime]

What was the time when festivals went mainstream? Advent of the internet and websites like this? Britpop? Televising in BBC?

[kaosmark2]

Televising in BBC?

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

What was the time when festivals went mainstream? Advent of the internet and websites like this? Britpop? Televising in BBC?

[mrtourette]

Record store for Reading, can't remember how I got my Glasto tickets in the 90s, assume it was cheque by post.

[windy_miller]

Record shops. I remember buying a Glasto 2000 ticket only a week or so before the Festival took place.

[dondo]

First time I bought Glastonbury tickets was in 2003 and that was over the phone.

When I first started going to gig in the late 80s it was either local record shops (virgin and ripping records in Edinburgh and Grouchos in Dundee), via post and hope you were lucky or phoning box office of venue and getting my mum to book them with her credit card (up until I was 18 and got my own card).

I ended up working at Virgin records in Edinburgh for a while in the mid 90s and I remember leaving work at night and folk would be there in their sleeping bags getting ready for big gigs going on sale the next morning- Oasis at Loch Lomond seems to stick in my mind as having a decent queue as I left.

[atomised]

Always used to pick up my glasto tickets a week or so before the fest at brighton peace centre, tended to book my coach seat at the same time. I loved just being able to hand over the cash and walk out with the ticket

[atomised]

Those were happy days, things seemed so much simpler. You prepared yourself. You went out. You purchased your ticket and instantly the excitement began

[Gnomicide]

I used to get my Donington & Reading tickets from the Royal Court box office in Liverpool. In later years, stuff like big gigs at Wembley were done over the phone - dial, engaged, re-dial, engaged, re-dial, engaged and repeat...

If a gig was for a popular band, you basically had to get there early and queue up, especially for gigs where the seats were left in if you wanted to get near the front. I think the earliest I queued up was for an Iron Maiden gig at Liverpool Empire, got there at around 6am and secured a second row seat

I once asked my mum to get me some tickets from the Royal Court box office for '80s blues rock/hair band Cinderella. The bloke who sold her the tickets said to her, "It's not a panto you know, love"

[atomised]

That's a great story. Made me smile. I remember the days of queueing outside venues for gigs. Sometimes through the night. Many from the early hours of the morning

[Gnomicide]

That's a great story. Made me smile. I remember the days of queueing outside venues for gigs. Sometimes through the night. Many from the early hours of the morning

Edited June 9, 2014 by Gnomicide

[atomised]

There were definitely always a few of those in queues. Looked so out of place

[sadimmock]

What was the time when festivals went mainstream? Advent of the internet and websites like this? Britpop? Televising in BBC?

[nigelreocoker]

i suspect it was 2003-2004. In 2003 I bought a ticket from my (then) local record shop (Concepts in Durham) without any bother. 2004 rolled around and there just seemed a lot more hype, so we spent most of the day on the phone trying to get tickets (the website died after about 5s). I don't think that any were on sale in shops from that point on. For me that was the transition point.

[gary1979666]

i suspect it was 2003-2004. In 2003 I bought a ticket from my (then) local record shop (Concepts in Durham) without any bother. 2004 rolled around and there just seemed a lot more hype, so we spent most of the day on the phone trying to get tickets (the website died after about 5s). I don't think that any were on sale in shops from that point on. For me that was the transition point.

[atomised]

It used to be rounder records in brighton and now I think it's resident records for smaller gigs.

There used to be a branch of keith prowse as well which was useful for gigs in London.

Since I moved to tonbridge I've never found an outlet for buying tickets over the counter