Missing Ticket - Stalemate between RM and See

[MoonBuggy]

Gotta remember that printing and posting alone is going to be on the order of quarter of a million quid every year, and that’s a conservative estimate! 

Scanners that can show the reg photos should be around £500 a pop if they buy them outright, or far less if they just contract the whole job. Network bandwidth for the whole system would be absolutely minimal, but for reliability you might want a few fallbacks at each gate to keep things moving if one fails (say 5G, a direct microwave link to the farmhouse, and maybe even a Starlink dish). 

They could have 400 scanners for £200k and plenty leftover for absolutely overkill triple-redundant networking at every gate, bought outright by the festival, for a single year’s postage costs. 

Contract it in from a company that has all the kit and actually makes use of it year round and it should be a good bit cheaper than the current system. 

[NickM45]

Or they could allow festival goers to choose printed tickets or an electronic one at the point of sale and allow some choice. Using Starlink is a great idea.

15 minutes ago, MoonBuggy said:

maybe even a Starlink dish

 

[oakdown]

There's still plenty can go wrong with mobile tickets. I worked as a Ticketmaster liaison at a big outdoor show in Glasgow last year and even with it being much smaller than Glasto (and having city-centre-level data coverage) the whole thing was a nightmare. Major problems with the scanners, confused security, punters not able to get their tickets up due to the 4G getting overloaded. I was wandering about trying to hot-spot folk just so they could get in. 

Obviously there are a ton of events that use mobile tickets and have it run just fine, but I can imagine the fest not wanting the potential headache of backing-up gates as opposed to dealing with paper ticket issues at the box office. Not saying they're right, but I can see it. 

[Simsy]

5 minutes ago, oakdown said:

There's still plenty can go wrong with mobile tickets. I worked as a Ticketmaster liaison at a big outdoor show in Glasgow last year and even with it being much smaller than Glasto (and having city-centre-level data coverage) the whole thing was a nightmare. Major problems with the scanners, confused security, punters not able to get their tickets up due to the 4G getting overloaded. I was wandering about trying to hot-spot folk just so they could get in. 

Obviously there are a ton of events that use mobile tickets and have it run just fine, but I can imagine the fest not wanting the potential headache of backing-up gates as opposed to dealing with paper ticket issues at the box office. Not saying they're right, but I can see it. 

There's also a risk of a tout selling a fake QR code to thousands of people, which you don't get with paper tickets.

[March Hare]

You want to trust the people who brought you Live From Worthy Farm with a technology roll out 😱

Edited June 18, 2022 by March Hare

[clarkete]

3 minutes ago, March Hare said:

You want to trust the people who brought you Live From Worthy Farm with a technology roll out 😱

Indeed, "contracting out" doesn't mean the festival don't get the blame. 

Some people's suggestions are a bit pie in the sky

[MoonBuggy]

9 minutes ago, Simsy said:

There's also a risk of a tout selling a fake QR code to thousands of people, which you don't get with paper tickets.

Surely that's the same as the risk of someone printing fake paper tickets? I'd feel sorry for the punters who got scammed either way, but you're not getting through the gate with a fake QR any more than you are with a ticket drawn in crayon. 

[MoonBuggy]

8 minutes ago, March Hare said:

You want to trust the people who brought you Live From Worthy Farm with a technology roll out 😱

Haha, fair to say! 

QR code tickets are tried, tested, and proven - there's no reason they couldn't work seamlessly for lower cost than the current system if they hired the right people to do it. But it's fair to say that hiring the right people isn't always clear cut, and any change is a risk. 

I'd still prefer the move to e-tickets for multiple reasons, but I think we can all agree that if they don't want to go that way, the least they can do is assign someone to the phones for the ~3 weeks up to the festival to sort out the inevitable issues that will come up with logistics at this scale! 

[gizmoman]

33 minutes ago, MoonBuggy said:

Surely that's the same as the risk of someone printing fake paper tickets? I'd feel sorry for the punters who got scammed either way, but you're not getting through the gate with a fake QR any more than you are with a ticket drawn in crayon. 

Not at all, there is very little chance of someone copying the current tickets, they have too many security features and it would be obvious to anyone they were fake, not so a barcode/qr code by the time you got to the event and were turned away it would be too late and it would cause massive problems for the festival not just for the punters.

[gizmoman]

33 minutes ago, MoonBuggy said:

Haha, fair to say! 

QR code tickets are tried, tested, and proven - there's no reason they couldn't work seamlessly for lower cost than the current system if they hired the right people to do it. But it's fair to say that hiring the right people isn't always clear cut, and any change is a risk. 

I'd still prefer the move to e-tickets for multiple reasons, but I think we can all agree that if they don't want to go that way, the least they can do is assign someone to the phones for the ~3 weeks up to the festival to sort out the inevitable issues that will come up with logistics at this scale! 

QR codes can be hacked, the EU covid pass is a prime example, the encryption codes were leaked and so it was (and still is as far as I know) possible to buy fake passes that work just the same as genuine ones.

[gizmoman]

Just posted a reply and got a message that my post had to be approved by a moderator, never had that before. It concerned the security of qr codes, will be interesting to see if it appears.

Edited June 18, 2022 by gizmoman
explanation

[MoonBuggy]

5 minutes ago, gizmoman said:

Not at all, there is very little chance of someone copying the current tickets, they have too many security features and it would be obvious to anyone they were fake, not so a barcode/qr code by the time you got to the event and were turned away it would be too late and it would cause massive problems for the festival not just for the punters.

Absolutely agreed that they won't be copied in a way that gets past the gate, but I was more meaning that if someone's willing to scam then they'd be happy printing something that'll fool the buyer even if it won't fool the gate agent, which gives the same problem of people turning up and causing congestion/arguments.

Any digital ticketing system I've seen lets you check your ticket code against the website to confirm the details, so that'd rule out selling totally fake codes entirely. I guess they could theoretically send the same, genuine, code to multiple buyers - but then that goes for any e-ticket event (football, other festivals, etc.) and I haven't heard of it being a significant problem? 

[Ashl]

If I were doing it I would have a fairly simple solution of a few offline mini servers per gate which will be a few tb of storage raided with everyones photo stored on each covering each gate area containing all the photos matched to QR code that had been distributed.. scan QR which has photo with it.. photo is then displayed to person scanning, if this does not match picture or person... no entry... I reckon that could could be done if they had digital/printable tickets with a QR obviously with an upfront cost but fairly usable for a number of years with plenty of redundancy. If the solution requires 4g or wifi it suddenly becomes more complex some, hard wired is better!

[MoonBuggy]

You can store a local copy of the full ticket DB with photos on every scanner without too much trouble - it'd fit on a £25 microSD with tens of gigs to spare, so no worries there. Main concern for the network would be making sure each code gets invalidated on all gates as soon as it's used, otherwise you'd get a lot of similar-looking mates getting multiple people in on copies one code.

You could certainly do that with local systems, but if you're linking all the gates together anyway, either wired or wireless, you may as well link that network out to the internet as well so that the tech team can monitor and manage the whole thing more easily. 

Edited June 18, 2022 by MoonBuggy

[gizmoman]

2 hours ago, MoonBuggy said:

 

QR code tickets are tried, tested, and proven - there's no reason they couldn't work seamlessly

55 minutes ago, MoonBuggy said:

Main concern for the network would be making sure each code gets invalidated on all gates as soon as it's used, otherwise you'd get a lot of similar-looking mates getting multiple people in on copies one code.

 

 

Well you've managed to find one reason already!

"if you're linking all the gates together anyway, either wired or wireless, you may as well link that network out to the internet as well so that the tech team can monitor and manage the whole thing more easily. "

Why on earth would you link a network you are relying on to secure the whole festival ticketing to the internet? Doing so opens it up to hackers and makes it vunerable to other issues, just because something is possible doesn't mean you should do it.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

How would the pass outs work with a digital system?

[MoonBuggy]

35 minutes ago, gizmoman said:

Well you've managed to find one reason already!

Nah, that's just a reason to have the scanners all on one network rather than totally independent from each other - not a flaw, just something to be aware of when building the system. That's where the "tried and tested" bit is extra helpful, means that there are plenty of people with experience setting these things up correctly! 

35 minutes ago, gizmoman said:

Why on earth would you link a network you are relying on to secure the whole festival ticketing to the internet? Doing so opens it up to hackers and makes it vunerable to other issues, just because something is possible doesn't mean you should do it.

Resilience. One local network is a single point of failure, whereas multiple redundant connections to the wider internet give you far more possible routes to keep everything up and running. Sure, you could build three or four parallel local networks from scratch in case one goes down, but that's far more difficult and expensive than just using the internet - it would also be a more bespoke system with more chances for something to be set up incorrectly, vs totally off the shelf connectivity that's been tested to the extremes and proven to work. 

Again, it's not like this is new tech: basically every secure system you interact with is connected to the internet. Banking, communications, ticketing, healthcare, business - there are literally millions of people with decades of experience in doing this right, and any number of secure options exist for routing private data over public networks. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying digital ticketing is a panacea - but I do think it's the better option, and I haven't seen any of the specific issues you mention coming up at other events that use it.

16 minutes ago, Rufus Gwertigan said:

How would the pass outs work with a digital system?

I would have thought just scan out, scan back in? 

[Mardy]

they already go online at the gates to check your details if you don't look like your photo. 

 

Personally, yeah, I'd like the choice to go digital for this tickets, I think. Obviously it would exclude a certain proportion of the population, so might have to be blended/optional

[ModernMan]

Just from a memento perspective, I would miss the paper ticket greatly.

[TheDayman]

13 hours ago, Beerqueen said:

Exactly.  Royal Mail have failed SeeTickets and Glastonbury Festival in their contract which was to provide next day, signed for delivery.  If they had done this, they would have known where the ticket was.  Additionally, SeeTickets need more customer service people to help sort things out if they do go wrong.

Tbh, I have less issues with Royal Mail than I do with See.

Final delivery is only one part of, what might be, a complete and utter shitshow come Wednesday morning. For example, a strategic decision was made to not post international tickets and its becoming more and more apparent that they have no plan in place to distribute what is going to be an exceptionally larger number of tickets left for box office collection.

People are also being told that the parking passes that weren't sent in time will need to be sent back for a refund (and they will now need to pay again at the gate). Others are being told to park at PGA to pick up their tickets (which lets be honest, is never going to be allowed).

There's no clear pedestrian routes - other than the road - from the car parks for those who need to get back to the box office at PGA.

It's all pointing to a clear disconnect with the on the ground logistics of the festival and there seems to be zero planning in place to mitigate against the disruption their decisions may cause.

I really hope all will goes well but right now, the evidence is starting to point towards a messy start and at a minimum, probable traffic issues.

Sorry, long rant but it's so frustrating...

 

[HyperTechnoHorse]

On 6/17/2022 at 10:59 PM, august1 said:

the only reason why paper tickets exist is so they can see the picture of the person, if you had print at home tickets people could edit it. Mobile tickets and its relies on a massive system/loads of tech at gate and hoping it doesnt fall over

Except the festival already has all our photos on record. Give gate staff tablets, scan QR code, photo etc. pops up, validate from there. 

There's thousands of off-the-shelf solutions available for events staff to buy from established companies who have been doing this for decades.  Really no excuse to not go down this route in this day and age. 

[Beerqueen]

9 minutes ago, TheDayman said:

Tbh, I have less issues with Royal Mail than I do with See.

Final delivery is only one part of, what might be, a complete and utter shitshow come Wednesday morning. For example, a strategic decision was made to not post international tickets and its becoming more and more apparent that they have no plan in place to distribute what is going to be an exceptionally larger number of tickets left for box office collection.

People are also being told that the parking passes that weren't sent in time will need to be sent back for a refund (and they will now need to pay again at the gate). Others are being told to park at PGA to pick up their tickets (which lets be honest, is never going to be allowed).

There's no clear pedestrian routes - other than the road - from the car parks for those who need to get back to the box office at PGA.

It's all pointing to a clear disconnect with the on the ground logistics of the festival and there seems to be zero planning in place to mitigate against the disruption their decisions may cause.

I really hope all will goes well but right now, the evidence is starting to point towards a messy start and at a minimum, probable traffic issues.

Sorry, long rant but it's so frustrating...

 

I didn't realise about the car parking problems on top of everything else.  It's all a shambles really.  There is the late sending out of tickets (See Tickets fault) and the fact that RM failed to ensure secure delivery of some of those that they were in possession of (RM's fault).  And Glastonbury Festival's failure to have a handle on these things.

[jimmillen]

12 minutes ago, Beerqueen said:

I didn't realise about the car parking problems on top of everything else.  It's all a shambles really.  There is the late sending out of tickets (See Tickets fault) and the fact that RM failed to ensure secure delivery of some of those that they were in possession of (RM's fault).  And Glastonbury Festival's failure to have a handle on these things.

I’d not be at all surprised if See & GFL have lost people over the forced covid break with experience managing the ticket operation. 🙁 Bit like the chaos at airports… when you’ve been scaled right back and lots of the expertise has moved on, getting back to normal is tough. 

Don’t think Royal Mail can claim that excuse though! 

[TheDayman]

1 hour ago, jimmillen said:

I’d not be at all surprised if See & GFL have lost people over the forced covid break with experience managing the ticket operation. 🙁 Bit like the chaos at airports… when you’ve been scaled right back and lots of the expertise has moved on, getting back to normal is tough. 

Don’t think Royal Mail can claim that excuse though! 

I've no doubt that's the case and tbf, the live events industry was disproportionately affected.

That said, a lot of people have pointed out these oncoming issues well in advance to See and the Festival. People are even tweeting Emily directly as well as cc'ing See's CEO on their emails. I can understand gaps in knowledge as a result of covid but people are literally highlighting the problems directly to the top brass but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

Anywho, here's hoping this is all just sensationalism and everything works out fine when we get there! I'll never be as happy to be proven wrong!

Onwards and upwards, we're nearly there! 🥳