There has to be a better way to allocate tickets

[eFestivals]

14 minutes ago, Ayrshire Chris said:

Maybe wait until the next fallow year, clear it off and have a year and a bit until the next sale to re register.

but that would mean most registrations would fall within the same year three years later when it came to clear them off.

Ideally you'd want one third to expire each year.

[Quark]

20 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

that part is easy enough.

What's not so easy is how you move the existing registrations to a 3-year-expire system at 1/3 per year.

True.  It's getting it into that rolling 3 year system that would be the issue. And there was me thinking I'd nailed it

[Havors]

It may have been mentioned before but..... the registrations should be authenticated... i.e. you submit a pic of photo ID or some other verification system. Then in most cases everyone has only one registration.... 

Then from there use the same system they have for the ballot they just done where you reg number can only be inputted once... prior to the sale going live (like a pre-sale set up) then at 9am boom you start smashing refresh to get on the payment page.. still have that luck element but you dont have a million extra devices and connections spamming the servers. 

So basically whomever in your group has the best connection they enter the 6 people details prior to 9am... then when it goes live you start refreshing. 

[shuttlep]

1 hour ago, kevbizarre said:

If you had a ballot you would do away with deposit and refund system I suspect. Purchase all the tickets applied for, or none at all (like other similar big events) 

I always think about the deposit scheme, how much interest does the festival make on the deposits, so say

 

200.000 x £50 10 million , stick that in a high interest account for 6 months until balance payment day ,  by my reckoning that's  a juicy amount for doing fuck all .

[Old_Johno]

1 minute ago, shuttlep said:

I always think about the deposit scheme, how much interest does the festival make on the deposits, so say

 

200.000 x £50 10 million , stick that in a high interest account for 6 months until balance payment day ,  by my reckoning that's  a juicy amount for doing fuck all .

I’m not sure there’s actually 200k tickets for sale. Think it’s closer to 150k by the time staff and performers are done.

theres a huge amount of stuff that needs paying for in advance so I highly doubt the money is just sat there. 

[dotdash79]

13 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

that part is easy enough.

What's not so easy is how you move the existing registrations to a 3-year-expire system at 1/3 per year.

You divide the difference between the year registered and now by 3 and set to expire when it reaches a round number. 
 

for example 

registrations made in 2016 will expire this year  

registrations made in 2015 will expire in 2021

2011 registrations will expire 2020

 

[Havors]

29 minutes ago, dotdash79 said:

You divide the difference between the year registered and now by 3 and set to expire when it reaches a round number. 
 

for example 

registrations made in 2016 will expire this year  

registrations made in 2015 will expire in 2021

2011 registrations will expire 2020

 

They should do a clear out thats for sure.... email everyone on the registration list telling them to reply by a certain time or they will be removed. That will clear out all the dead wood to start with. 

[Mimo]

Friend of mine made a good point in that it’s not the system that’s the problem, it’s the experience. Trying to buy tickets is one of the most stressful half hours of the year, surely something could be done to make it a little less fraught and so you don’t feel as robbed when you miss out.

I don’t mind the element of luck, but if they could eliminate the nonsense of frantically refreshing the holding page across numerous phones and laptops and also do away with the stress of getting though to the enter details page 5 times and not being able to get any further (like wot happened to me this year) it’d be far better all round imo.

Mind you I always thought the experience was fine in previous years when I easily got tickets after 5 minutes lol

If any changes are made it should always stay as democratic and open as possible, it’s not about throwing up hurdles to try and put people off and ensure that the ‘true faithful’ always get their tickets. No one is more deserving of a ticket than anyone else.

Edited October 14, 2019 by Mimo

[p.pete]

4 hours ago, Quark said:

True.  It's getting it into that rolling 3 year system that would be the issue. And there was me thinking I'd nailed it

Just re-register every year.  Yes, a bit odd to have a 3-year conveyor with everyone dropping off it at the same point.  Want to buy tickets?  Step 1 register / reactivate your registration.  We'd all forget if it was every 3 years.

[p.pete]

3 hours ago, Havors said:

It may have been mentioned before but..... the registrations should be authenticated... i.e. you submit a pic of photo ID or some other verification system. Then in most cases everyone has only one registration.... 

Then from there use the same system they have for the ballot they just done where you reg number can only be inputted once... prior to the sale going live (like a pre-sale set up) then at 9am boom you start smashing refresh to get on the payment page.. still have that luck element but you dont have a million extra devices and connections spamming the servers. 

So basically whomever in your group has the best connection they enter the 6 people details prior to 9am... then when it goes live you start refreshing. 

I like it.  I'm sure there's plenty of technical reasons why it couldn't work, but people seem pretty clever these days.  If you could limit it down to one person trying for each group of tickets, on one device - lots of stress for that one person! - you might end up closer to an equal opportunity.  f5 skills aside.

[hfuhruhurr]

17 hours ago, MJP said:

Emily also said that you can see a dip in when people stop trying for tickets - around 20 minutes in - so only really dedicated people get the tickets. Though, if they're going on hits, I guess they would naturally die down as people stop refreshing if they get to the booking form.

Also, a fair number of servers have crashed by then  - a dead server doesn't record any hits - and once you're assigned to it, you're buggered until you clear the "I'm assigned to a dead server" cookie.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

7 hours ago, Mimo said:

Friend of mine made a good point in that it’s not the system that’s the problem, it’s the experience. Trying to buy tickets is one of the most stressful half hours of the year, surely something could be done to make it a little less fraught and so you don’t feel as robbed when you miss out.

I don’t mind the element of luck, but if they could eliminate the nonsense of frantically refreshing the holding page across numerous phones and laptops and also do away with the stress of getting though to the enter details page 5 times and not being able to get any further (like wot happened to me this year) it’d be far better all round imo.

Mind you I always thought the experience was fine in previous years when I easily got tickets after 5 minutes lol

If any changes are made it should always stay as democratic and open as possible, it’s not about throwing up hurdles to try and put people off and ensure that the ‘true faithful’ always get their tickets. No one is more deserving of a ticket than anyone else.

Any situation in which you need to compete against other people over a limited time frame will be stressful. I personally like refreshing, it makes me feel like I’m in control, yes it’s stressful because I really want tickets so the Adrenalin is pumping. Any situation where you don’t have that ‘stress’ would ultimately be a scenario where you have no control at all, you just sit back and await your fate. People talk about virtual queues, I’ve no idea how this would work in practice with an event which is maybe 5x oversubscribed, but you’d assume you’d join a ‘queue’ and presumably get picked at random. Probably a lot less stressful, but I’d ultimately feel far more disappointed as I’d be lucky to go once every four or five years that way.

[zero000]

3 hours ago, hfuhruhurr said:

Also, a fair number of servers have crashed by then  - a dead server doesn't record any hits - and once you're assigned to it, you're buggered until you clear the "I'm assigned to a dead server" cookie.

Wait. What? Is that actually a thing? Do we need to clear cookies now? I've never realised.

[Mimo]

7 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Any situation in which you need to compete against other people over a limited time frame will be stressful. I personally like refreshing, it makes me feel like I’m in control, yes it’s stressful because I really want tickets so the Adrenalin is pumping. Any situation where you don’t have that ‘stress’ would ultimately be a scenario where you have no control at all, you just sit back and await your fate. People talk about virtual queues, I’ve no idea how this would work in practice with an event which is maybe 5x oversubscribed, but you’d assume you’d join a ‘queue’ and presumably get picked at random. Probably a lot less stressful, but I’d ultimately feel far more disappointed as I’d be lucky to go once every four or five years that way.

See what you're saying, I used to consider myself good at getting tickets after getting them 5 times in a row no problem at all, but then missed I out in 16, 17 and 19 having to rely on lucky mates in the resale each time. Back in that boat once again this year! Feeling incredibly unconfident.

I certainly didn't fail to get tickets because I didn't do it as well as anyone else, I pulled out all the stops and I was just unlucky. I was very lucky from 2010 to 2015, I've been very unlucky since (albeit lucky in April instead  ).

So now I reckon that luck already plays a such big part that the whole ritual of refreshing etc is kinda superfluous, it's just what you do whilst waiting to get lucky. Everyone is equally good at refreshing the webpage, and further to that there are plenty of stories of people getting through using their phones on dodgy signal with one tab never refreshing at all lol. Are they any less deserving to go than me? Of course not, I hope they have a great time (honest... ).

Also we don't really know for sure how many people are actually trying. It's good hype for the festival to mention the 2 million registrations, but I'd be surprised if the numbers actively trying on the day are any more than double the tickets available. I'd gladly take my minimum stress 1 in 2 chance every year  

So howsabout a ballot, with some kind of side competition to determine who's really the best at refreshing with tickets awarded to the top 3?  

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

50 minutes ago, Mimo said:

See what you're saying, I used to consider myself good at getting tickets after getting them 5 times in a row no problem at all, but then missed I out in 16, 17 and 19 having to rely on lucky mates in the resale each time. Back in that boat once again this year! Feeling incredibly unconfident.

I certainly didn't fail to get tickets because I didn't do it as well as anyone else, I pulled out all the stops and I was just unlucky. I was very lucky from 2010 to 2015, I've been very unlucky since (albeit lucky in April instead  ).

So now I reckon that luck already plays a such big part that the whole ritual of refreshing etc is kinda superfluous, it's just what you do whilst waiting to get lucky. Everyone is equally good at refreshing the webpage, and further to that there are plenty of stories of people getting through using their phones on dodgy signal with one tab never refreshing at all lol. Are they any less deserving to go than me? Of course not, I hope they have a great time (honest... ).

Also we don't really know for sure how many people are actually trying. It's good hype for the festival to mention the 2 million registrations, but I'd be surprised if the numbers actively trying on the day are any more than double the tickets available. I'd gladly take my minimum stress 1 in 2 chance every year  

So howsabout a ballot, with some kind of side competition to determine who's really the best at refreshing with tickets awarded to the top 3?  

If only 20% of the 2.3m try for tickets that’s still just under 4x the amount of available tickets. You’ve still beaten the odds under the current system regardless of how you ended up getting tickets. 

[Suprefan]

Well, if there was ever a time to see if something  could be tried out to buy tickets, Taylor Swifts u.s stadium dates went onsale today. You were placed in a queue but also you position was determined by her last tour. For reputation she essentially made it a game to improve youe queue position for whatever tour date you were trying for. You could buy her album, a t shirt, watch her music videos, all these things got you “higher up” in the queue. Your standing from 2 years ago was transferred to today and everyones been sitting on their computers just waiting for their turn.  Slowly but surely people are getting tickets. The shows are also in the round, so you could quantify the amount of tickets glasto sells to what taylor is selling right now and see how this process is panning out. 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

2 minutes ago, Suprefan said:

Well, if there was ever a time to see if something  could be tried out to buy tickets, Taylor Swifts u.s stadium dates went onsale today. You were placed in a queue but also you position was determined by her last tour. For reputation she essentially made it a game to improve youe queue position for whatever tour date you were trying for. You could buy her album, a t shirt, watch her music videos, all these things got you “higher up” in the queue. Your standing from 2 years ago was transferred to today and everyones been sitting on their computers just waiting for their turn.  Slowly but surely people are getting tickets. The shows are also in the round, so you could quantify the amount of tickets glasto sells to what taylor is selling right now and see how this process is panning out. 

That would be entirely the opposite thing that Glastonbury should and would want to achieve. Favouring existing loyalty, the desire to pay more and previous visits is completely against what they want from a ticket sale.

[squirrelarmy]

4 minutes ago, Suprefan said:

Well, if there was ever a time to see if something  could be tried out to buy tickets, Taylor Swifts u.s stadium dates went onsale today. You were placed in a queue but also you position was determined by her last tour. For reputation she essentially made it a game to improve youe queue position for whatever tour date you were trying for. You could buy her album, a t shirt, watch her music videos, all these things got you “higher up” in the queue. Your standing from 2 years ago was transferred to today and everyones been sitting on their computers just waiting for their turn.  Slowly but surely people are getting tickets. The shows are also in the round, so you could quantify the amount of tickets glasto sells to what taylor is selling right now and see how this process is panning out. 

So she’s added microtransactions to ticket buying?

 I don’t think a pay to win system will go down well with Glasto fans. 

[henry bear]

So basically, the more money you throw at her in advance for things you may not otherwise buy, the more chance you have of securing tickets. Loads of acts do similar but I don’t see Glastonbury going down that route.

[D-Low]

On 10/13/2019 at 10:46 PM, MJP said:

Emily was asked about a ballot tonight at Cheltenham Lit Fest. Her reply was that they do need to look at the ticket system

See, it really scares me they are even looking in to the system. The system is NOT broke. Yes its painfully frustrating. Yes missing out is heartbreaking (I've missed a fair good few years). Yes refreshing f5 for what feels like hours but is a mere 30 minutes is soul destroying. But it works. People buy tickets. People get through to the booking page. Just not everyone. It's the fairest it can be. If see tickets got more servers to avoid the crashing then the tickets would just sell out faster, nothing more and people would still be upset.

You can't possible please everyone. There isn't an infinite number of tickets. All this ballot talk terrifies me.

[Suprefan]

1 hour ago, squirrelarmy said:

So she’s added microtransactions to ticket buying?

 I don’t think a pay to win system will go down well with Glasto fans. 

Pretty much. Depeche Mode started this a few months before Taylor did and I knew somebody would take it to another level. It was dependant on social media presence and obviously was a promotional tool above anything else. taylors ran for 3 months, Depeche Mode had it up for 2 weeks which seemed reasonable time. I was surprised that whole thing carried over to this tour for taylor, so you pretty much got a free pass on the queue for all the money and time you spent 2 years ago doing her bidding,

I totally understand that this wouldnt fly with glasto purchases, but I think some elements could be used to make it easier to buy tickets. In 2017 they actually spaced out the sale over a period of a couple days. ( I know, not happening with glasto ) but since you had a predetermined place in the queue it made purchasing much smoother because you were notified when it was your turn and you followed the link provided and such and went to buy. Web traffic was managed really well and you could pick your tickets at leisure, no crashes and such. Also knowing your exact spot in the queue did give you some relief as to having a chance to buy tickets or not. This conversation will never end, but my philosophy is that no stone should be unturned in regards to trying to find a way to hopefully one day make it more reasonable, fair and stress free as possible for everyone trying to get a ticket.

I mean 20 years ago when you could still buy tickets in person at a record shop there were certain  policies' in place in a lot of cities to make buying as fair as possible. If there was more than a certain amount of people queued up they essentially did  a ballot of numbers. Everyone got a number and they drew one, then whoever was that number was first and then you followed in sequence of that order. Of course there was always a time when the last person to get a number ended up first in line, but thats life.

There was also a similar system in place for the big radio station gigs over the holidays years ago before online buying just became the only way. You were able to go to the venue box office and everyone got a numbered wristband. They kept drawing numbers and it would be in batches of 10  from that number that would go up to  buy. Took a few hours to sell out the gig, but it was pretty fair. There were lots of repeated numbers, but you knew there was no other way it would sell out while you were there and had a wristband, and they called numbers until it sold out.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

5 hours ago, Suprefan said:

Pretty much. Depeche Mode started this a few months before Taylor did and I knew somebody would take it to another level. It was dependant on social media presence and obviously was a promotional tool above anything else. taylors ran for 3 months, Depeche Mode had it up for 2 weeks which seemed reasonable time. I was surprised that whole thing carried over to this tour for taylor, so you pretty much got a free pass on the queue for all the money and time you spent 2 years ago doing her bidding,

I totally understand that this wouldnt fly with glasto purchases, but I think some elements could be used to make it easier to buy tickets. In 2017 they actually spaced out the sale over a period of a couple days. ( I know, not happening with glasto ) but since you had a predetermined place in the queue it made purchasing much smoother because you were notified when it was your turn and you followed the link provided and such and went to buy. Web traffic was managed really well and you could pick your tickets at leisure, no crashes and such. Also knowing your exact spot in the queue did give you some relief as to having a chance to buy tickets or not. This conversation will never end, but my philosophy is that no stone should be unturned in regards to trying to find a way to hopefully one day make it more reasonable, fair and stress free as possible for everyone trying to get a ticket.

I mean 20 years ago when you could still buy tickets in person at a record shop there were certain  policies' in place in a lot of cities to make buying as fair as possible. If there was more than a certain amount of people queued up they essentially did  a ballot of numbers. Everyone got a number and they drew one, then whoever was that number was first and then you followed in sequence of that order. Of course there was always a time when the last person to get a number ended up first in line, but thats life.

There was also a similar system in place for the big radio station gigs over the holidays years ago before online buying just became the only way. You were able to go to the venue box office and everyone got a numbered wristband. They kept drawing numbers and it would be in batches of 10  from that number that would go up to  buy. Took a few hours to sell out the gig, but it was pretty fair. There were lots of repeated numbers, but you knew there was no other way it would sell out while you were there and had a wristband, and they called numbers until it sold out.

That already exists in the current format. What exactly is broken about the current system?

Glastonbury is a minimum 4/5x oversubscribed, all of your other suggestions amount to essentially some sort of ballot, the method of how that ballot would work is just slightly different each time.

People seem to think you can just invent some sort of utopia where we all get to join some magical queue and get to painlessly buy our tickets, that is impossible with Glastonbury, more people can and will miss out than actually get to go.

If we ended up with a system where a sale lasted two days and you were told when to login and buy your tickets. That would essentially be a ballot, you’d be given the opportunity to login and buy tickets approximately once every four or five years, the rest of the time you wouldn’t. Granted it would be a stress free experience when you actually got the opportunity, but you would get the opportunity a let less than with the current system.

Edited October 15, 2019 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[hfuhruhurr]

11 hours ago, zero000 said:

Wait. What? Is that actually a thing? Do we need to clear cookies now? I've never realised.

Way back in this thread there's a pretty good write up of how it all works. When you first get on the holding page that is on one of hundreds/thousands(?) of servers - when you refresh it comes back instantly - that's because you're assigned that server by a cookie.

Your browser is sending off a request to that server "hey, let me in", if the server responds with the inevitable "no" or more specifically doesn't say "yes", the page refreshes (doesn't go off to SEE it's your local cached version in your browser that refreshes - hence it's instant). If the server is dead, your browser will still refresh the page (it's not told "yes"). You're in the dead server loop. Note, that you don't know this - it may well be alive and just not able to get through.

I'm pretty sure this also happens along the chain - you enter your details and the server you're on there can't communicate with the other server that doles out tickets - again in a dead loop. And again on payment, same communication issue. On all of these, it might not be dead but it probably is if you fail multiple times - hence the "go back" advice on the GF page.

So, we've probably got 3 possible stages of failure - initial gate keeper, reg-to-here's your tix, tix-payment.

So yes, if you're not getting anywhere at any stage it may well be that you will never get anywhere since your hammering away at broken hardware. You have to start again. Hence the better chances in success of groups - they are all giving themselves a better opportunity to be on live machines (and hitting that wheel of fortune more often). The ticket lock out will bugger you up if the payment hardware is bust - since according to SEE, you're reg has been assigned a ticket for 10 mins (or is it 5 - can't remember).

A lottery which slightly favours people who know the system. That said - I failed - reg-to-ticket server broken, was in at 09:20, never got out.

The issue is that you don't know if you're stuck, so clearing cookies could be a waste of F5 time.

[dotdash79]

We’re 15 pages in and this discussion happens every year and no one has come up with a better way for ticket, only minor tweaks. 

The fact of the matter is that when supply exceeds demand then you either increase supply or reduce the demand so everyone is happy  

this is like Brexit but for tickets. 

[eFestivals]

16 minutes ago, hfuhruhurr said:

Your browser is sending off a request to that server "hey, let me in", if the server responds with the inevitable "no" or more specifically doesn't say "yes", the page refreshes (doesn't go off to SEE it's your local cached version in your browser that refreshes - hence it's instant). If the server is dead, your browser will still refresh the page (it's not told "yes"). You're in the dead server loop. Note, that you don't know this - it may well be alive and just not able to get through.

this is technically inaccurate.

If the server is dead when you request the page, the page at your device will not refresh from the cache. It's a different response, so the browser will (try to) serve the right thing for that different response.