One change I'd make to the festival is....

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

9 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

Yep. A blank screen or the dinosaur of doom is hugely demoralising. With the technology available these days, there's absolutely no reason why they can't provide:

• A holding screen refreshing every so often, giving an indication of sales progress
• A virtual queuing system, indicating your place in it, maybe even an estimated time to move into the next stage
• Once you've secured your tickets, a reliable system that ensures you won't be kicked out of the screen
• Sufficient time in which to carefully enter your registration and payment details. Up to ten minutes would be fair, given the amount of information you've got to enter, whilst your adrenaline is pumping
• Maybe a section on the website where you can sign-in, say up to two hours before the sale, pre-load your registration (which would check that your information is also correct) and payment details ahead of the sale going live? Then, when the sale actually starts and you secure your tickets, all your details are entered and pre-authorised, making it a much quicker and less stressful exercise.

The sad thing is, come Thursday evening and Sunday lunchtime, we'll probably be talking about the same system and website failures that have plagued the ticket sale for the last 8/9 years.

 

It wouldn’t make it any easier to get tickets, the current system is fine, that’s if you prefer a better chance of getting tickets if you’re organised and persistent that is.

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

1 minute ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

Spot on. I am loathe to criticise the Eavii because they run a wonderful festival which has given me some of my favourite memories, but by this point their ongoing reluctance to modernise the ticketing system beyond what worked in 2005 reflects quite badly on what is otherwise a flawless operation. 

They absolutely do, but GFL is not beyond criticism, particularly if they're failing to act on something that repeatedly causes problems year upon year. I think every regular Glasto-goer I know has experienced more than one instance of the issues I mentioned, and only by the sheer luck of someone else getting them a ticket, have they been able to attend. 

Nothing's ever guaranteed of course, and none of us should feel like the festival owes us anything, but I know if I fail in getting a ticket, I'd like it to be because I was just unfortunate or a question of poor timing, rather than it being due to the unreliability of a broken system.

[Rose-Colored Boy]

1 minute ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

It wouldn’t make it any easier to get tickets, the current system is fine, that’s if you prefer a better chance of getting tickets if you’re organised and persistent that is.

But the current system doesn’t benefit those who are more organised. Currently you can boot up the computer at 9:15am and have basically the same chance of success as someone who has been hitting F5 constantly since 08:59:59. A virtual queue where you just wait for your turn to (hopefully) come up would solve that, and not be a massive tweak either. 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

1 minute ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

But the current system doesn’t benefit those who are more organised. Currently you can boot up the computer at 9:15am and have basically the same chance of success as someone who has been hitting F5 constantly since 08:59:59. A virtual queue where you just wait for your turn to (hopefully) come up would solve that, and not be a massive tweak either. 

The reality is it’s over subscribed, not everyone can go, a virtual queue would just be a nonsense placebo for anyone in it.

If they ever change the current system I’d personally be gutted because I think it gives me the best possible chance of getting tickets.

Ultimately everyone wants to design a system that suits them best, but nothing will guarantee you a ticket and for those who miss out they’ll always moan about the one they failed on being unfair and look to engineer it to favour them.

 

 

[clarkete]

18 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

Yep. A blank screen or the dinosaur of doom is hugely demoralising. With the technology available these days, there's absolutely no reason why they can't provide:

• A holding screen refreshing every so often, giving an indication of sales progress
• A virtual queuing system, indicating your place in it, maybe even an estimated time to move into the next stage
• Once you've secured your tickets, a reliable system that ensures you won't be kicked out of the screen
• Sufficient time in which to carefully enter your registration and payment details. Up to ten minutes would be fair, given the amount of information you've got to enter, whilst your adrenaline is pumping
• Maybe a section on the website where you can sign-in, say up to two hours before the sale, pre-load your registration (which would check that your information is also correct) and payment details ahead of the sale going live? Then, when the sale actually starts and you secure your tickets, all your details are entered and pre-authorised, making it a much quicker and less stressful exercise.

The sad thing is, come Thursday evening and Sunday lunchtime, we'll probably be talking about the same system and website failures that have plagued the ticket sale for the last 8/9 years.

 

1. The current system is apparently much cheaper than comparative affirmatives

2. Obviously it's used very infrequently, so the return on any investment would be only felt once per year

3. We know they've clearly changed a number of things, some of which we're aware of from our experiences and some we aren't, but they've certainly done stuff for example to level the playing field to a degree between the old hands and the new. 

[incident]

Just now, Rose-Colored Boy said:

But the current system doesn’t benefit those who are more organised. Currently you can boot up the computer at 9:15am and have basically the same chance of success as someone who has been hitting F5 constantly since 08:59:59. A virtual queue where you just wait for your turn to (hopefully) come up would solve that, and not be a massive tweak either. 

That virtual queue would have 200,000+ people hitting it at 9am and a fraction of a second, so the "first" 40,000 odd get the chance to buy tickets and the others are locked out based on a criteria that's entirely beyond their control.

The current system isn't entirely without ones own control, of course, but it's still a damn sight better than a pure lottery.

[gooner1990]

Each system is flawed, I was trying to help a mate get Tyson Fury v Dillon Whyte tickets a few weeks ago from Ticketmaster and they had a virtual queue.

I just left that on one screen and go on with my work in an other occasionally looking at it.

That to me doesn’t benefit the more keen Glastonbury goer over the more casual one!

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

6 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

It wouldn’t make it any easier to get tickets, the current system is fine, that’s if you prefer a better chance of getting tickets if you’re organised and persistent that is.

Being organised and more persistent certainly improves your chances, but that's absolutely no guarantee of success. In fairness, there shouldn't be any guarantees. I'm not asking to change the structure of the system, all I'm suggesting is that the current process embraces more advanced technology to the point where if I'm unsuccessful, at least: 1) I did everything I could to be prepared, and 2) the system to try and get tickets was fair, simple and reliable. If both of these boxes are ticked, I've got no complaints. The current one, although it may have been improved slightly as you point out, is still quite significantly flawed, in my opinion.

Let's see how Thursday and Sunday go, it's been a while...

[SighMo]

2 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

The reality is it’s over subscribed, not everyone can go, a virtual queue would just be a nonsense placebo for anyone in it.

If they ever change the current system I’d personally be gutted because I think it gives me the best possible chance of getting tickets.

Ultimately everyone wants to design a system that suits them best, but nothing will guarantee you a ticket and for those who miss out they’ll always moan about the one they failed on being unfair and look to engineer it to favour them.

 

 

I'm with this. At least now you at least feel you're in with a shout right up until it says 'sold out'. Imagine being 500000th in the queue and knowing it.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

6 minutes ago, SighMo said:

I'm with this. At least now you at least feel you're in with a shout right up until it says 'sold out'. Imagine being 500000th in the queue and knowing it.

This is the thing, a virtual queue is totally unworkable for Glastonbury, it’s massively oversubscribed, if everyone buys 6 tickets that’s actually only 22,500 sessions to be able to buy a ticket. If you’re 200,000 in the queue then you’ve got zero chance. Instead the current system means you have in theory, unlimited chances to hit a booking page in the space of roughly half an hour.

I know I’d personally rather potentially thousands of chances to get tickets, compared to just one. It’s almost like people think a virtual queue means we can all just join it and patiently wait our turn to by tickets and everyone will get one, they won’t.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[Rose-Colored Boy]

12 minutes ago, SighMo said:

I'm with this. At least now you at least feel you're in with a shout right up until it says 'sold out'. Imagine being 500000th in the queue and knowing it.

I’ve had both experiences and I can assure you that being number 500,000 in a virtual queue doesn’t feel any worse than the sold out notification coming through before you’ve even got past the blank page of doom! 

Of course I totally understand that it’s oversubscribed and not everyone can go, I just hate the fact that being there on the dot of 9am gets you no significant advantage over someone who rocks up for the hell of it 20 minutes later. In the continued absence of a ballot - and as I’ve said, I totally understand why that is not something they’re about to start doing - just this small tweak would go some way to make the whole system feel more modern and fair, even if in the end the exact same number of people would go ticketless as go ticketless now. 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Rose-Colored Boy

[Avalon_Fields]

As long as demand vastly exceeds supply it will be a challenging and fraught process. The one change I'd like to see which must be possible to implement with some extra investment is to reduce the crashing when you're part way through entering details, I can't understand why this isn't made more robust.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Avalon_Fields

[fred quimby]

13 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

The reality is it’s over subscribed, not everyone can go, a virtual queue would just be a nonsense placebo for anyone in it.

If they ever change the current system I’d personally be gutted because I think it gives me the best possible chance of getting tickets.

Ultimately everyone wants to design a system that suits them best, but nothing will guarantee you a ticket and for those who miss out they’ll always moan about the one they failed on being unfair and look to engineer it to favour them.

 

 

Still a c**t when you get to the end and you put in all the details and it just kicks you out. That surely should be fixed.

On the other I get you. The British folk like a queue though, like a security blanket of some sort of fairness. 

[chazwwe]

2 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

I’ve had both experiences and I can assure you that being number 500,000 in a virtual queue wouldn’t feel worse than the sold out notification coming through before you’ve even got past the blank page!

Of course I totally understand that it’s oversubscribed and not everyone can go, I just hate the fact that being there on the dot of 9am gets you no significant advantage over someone who rocks up for the hell of it 20 minutes later. 

Nah, getting a blank page for 30 minutes, knowing the next refresh might be the on that gets you through, is far better than refreshing at 9am and being told you have no chance. 

You do have more chances at 9am than those at 9:20, yes there's luck to it, but you've got a longer time to refresh the page = more chances of getting through. Same with getting more people together, a group of 12 people trying to get 2 lots of 6 tickets is going to get through more often than a single person turning up at 9:20. 

[chazwwe]

Just now, fred quimby said:

Still a c**t when you get to the end and you put in all the details and it just kicks you out. That surely should be fixed.

On the other I get you. The British folk like a queue though, like a security blanket of some sort of fairness. 

This 100% needs to be fixed. This happened to me for 2019 and luckily someone else in our group had the page up as well and got through. Unfortunately that's the system overloading and probably kicks a lot of people out at the same time. 

[stuie]

No to a queuing system from me. 

I like the current game of chance, skill and determination. 

[fred quimby]

11 minutes ago, chazwwe said:

Nah, getting a blank page for 30 minutes, knowing the next refresh might be the on that gets you through, is far better than refreshing at 9am and being told you have no chance. 

You do have more chances at 9am than those at 9:20, yes there's luck to it, but you've got a longer time to refresh the page = more chances of getting through. Same with getting more people together, a group of 12 people trying to get 2 lots of 6 tickets is going to get through more often than a single person turning up at 9:20. 

There is a certain romance and exceleration in the chaos of a none queuing system. If you get through the sheer joy and rush.

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by fred quimby

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

10 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

I’ve had both experiences and I can assure you that being number 500,000 in a virtual queue doesn’t feel any worse than the sold out notification coming through before you’ve even got past the blank page of doom! 

Of course I totally understand that it’s oversubscribed and not everyone can go, I just hate the fact that being there on the dot of 9am gets you no significant advantage over someone who rocks up for the hell of it 20 minutes later. In the continued absence of a ballot - and as I’ve said, I totally understand why that is not something they’re about to start doing - just this small tweak would go some way to make the whole system feel more modern and fair, even if in the end the exact same number of people would go ticketless as go ticketless now. 

So you’d prefer instant disappointment with zero chance of redemption, vs a full half hour of unlimited opportunities?

I also don’t understand the point about getting there at 9am giving you no significant advantage, how would a virtual queue solve that?

Edited March 22, 2022 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[incident]

4 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

I just hate the fact that being there on the dot of 9am gets you no significant advantage over someone who rocks up for the hell of it 20 minutes later.

If you think that 20 minutes (during which probably 70,000 tickets are sold) isn't a significant advantage, then you've failed to understand how the system works.

The fact that someone could try for 30 minutes and miss out to someone who tried for 5 doesn't mean they didn't have an advantage - it just means they got unlucky.

 

[Rose-Colored Boy]

10 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

So you’d prefer instant disappointment with zero chance of redemption, vs a full half hour of unlimited opportunities?

Not much difference in it in terms of the actual aim of the game - i.e. getting tickets. You’d still have less than 5% chance of success, just for slightly different reasons. I’d rather have the certainty of knowing I hadn’t got in straight away than sit there for 45 minutes pointlessly getting my hopes up, personally. Having experienced more T-Days where I didn’t even get past the ‘this website is currently busy’ page than T-Days which were successful, I would do anything to avoid that again. 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Rose-Colored Boy

[gigpusher]

The key thing I would change would be to guarantee myself a ticket which wouldn't be fair but it would mean I'd always have a ticket 😄 

On a serious note regarding tickets I would ditch the paying at the same time. You should just reserve your ticket and then have 48 hours to pay your deposit or in the resale your full ticket price. This would naturally make it fairer for everyone as not every person going to Glastonbury has a spare £1200 on their card. If you could reserve for people and then have them pay their own deposits etc it would be much easier for people to group up. 

[chazwwe]

6 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

The key thing I would change would be to guarantee myself a ticket which wouldn't be fair but it would mean I'd always have a ticket 😄 

On a serious note regarding tickets I would ditch the paying at the same time. You should just reserve your ticket and then have 48 hours to pay your deposit or in the resale your full ticket price. This would naturally make it fairer for everyone as not every person going to Glastonbury has a spare £1200 on their card. If you could reserve for people and then have them pay their own deposits etc it would be much easier for people to group up. 

It's not£1200 though it's £50 per ticket. Which if you're buying 6. Is £300. 

[gooner1990]

5 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

The key thing I would change would be to guarantee myself a ticket which wouldn't be fair but it would mean I'd always have a ticket 😄 

On a serious note regarding tickets I would ditch the paying at the same time. You should just reserve your ticket and then have 48 hours to pay your deposit or in the resale your full ticket price. This would naturally make it fairer for everyone as not every person going to Glastonbury has a spare £1200 on their card. If you could reserve for people and then have them pay their own deposits etc it would be much easier for people to group up. 

Or you could just put all the money onto one card and then refund everyone if you don't get a ticket?

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

1 minute ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

Not much difference in it in terms of the actual aim of the game - i.e. getting tickets You’d still have less than 5% chance of success, just for slightly different reasons. I’d rather have the certainty of knowing I hadn’t got in straight away than sit there for 45 minutes pointlessly getting my hopes up, personally. Having experienced more T-Days where I didn’t even get past the ‘this website is currently busy’ page than T-Days which were successful, I would do anything to avoid that again. 

No offence but I think that’s a bit of an odd take. It’s just simple probability, you’re not sitting there pointlessly for 45 minutes, because every moment of that 45 minutes is an opportunity to hit a booking page. If someone gave you two dice and said you’ve got 45 minutes to roll a double 6, would you say that was pointless and not bother? 

[stuie]

Isn't this conversation usually saved for post-ticket sale/resale days?