ticket tips and tricks Glastonbury 2024 resales

[Havors]

On 8/24/2022 at 2:16 PM, eddie_corrigan said:

Live in Liverpool? 😎

I wish that worked... 2 out of the last 3 tickets sales is not a bad return though haha 

[stuie]

4 minutes ago, Sparticus01 said:

Someone snuck in 30k posts and no one noticed 😉 mind you I will be going back in a day or 2 … it does sound very trollish name .. and it’s just weird having a different one .. it was done at the request of someone on here 

yes the post count gave it away... but I saw your pic with a different name and as we both know, people get weird kicks out of doing similar things on here! 

[Crazyfool01]

Just now, stuie said:

yes the post count gave it away... but I saw your pic with a different name and as we both know, people get weird kicks out of doing similar things on here! 

Absolutely:) I’ll go back to CF tomoro just to save further confusion 🙂 

[incident]

9 hours ago, p.pete said:

Glastonbury improvement suggestion #4,329 - but could they just have a 'London' or a 'Bristol' sale, and then similar to campervan etc afterwards have a follow-up (not really a) sale where you book which bus you want? 

Many pros and cons to it - pros including: removing one of those extra variables; and you'd be guaranteed a ticket at that point so some people who didn't care about what bus they were on might be less competitive letting people who desperately want to be on a specific bus get in there first (assume people desperately go for whatever's available at the moment).  Cons including: most people probably would care, so an extra point of anxiety; adding in more logistics etc

I don't understand why they even need to lock any of the tickets to specific departure points or services.

Sell say 30,000 festival tickets that are only valid if travelling on an approved service. Then sell the actual coach tickets separately. Can also open it up so that National Express coaches count as an approved service. Stamp* peoples tickets as they get off the coaches to validate them.

Then, most importantly, make it clear that they're actually going to enforce this and people with a coach ticket who turn up by car will be turned away without refund.

*Stamp is an example, there's dozens of ways they could achieve this same end result.

[gfa]

39 minutes ago, incident said:

I don't understand why they even need to lock any of the tickets to specific departure points or services.

Sell say 30,000 festival tickets that are only valid if travelling on an approved service. Then sell the actual coach tickets separately. Can also open it up so that National Express coaches count as an approved service. Stamp* peoples tickets as they get off the coaches to validate them.

Then, most importantly, make it clear that they're actually going to enforce this and people with a coach ticket who turn up by car will be turned away without refund.

*Stamp is an example, there's dozens of ways they could achieve this same end result.

Ensures every coach is completely full. Say 60 people want a coach from edinburgh in the sale but theres only one coach of 58 seats, they would either have to get a second coach or whatever or tell the 2 extras to drive to another place first - causing endless hassle.

[incident]

3 minutes ago, gfa said:

Ensures every coach is completely full. Say 60 people want a coach from edinburgh in the sale but theres only one coach of 58 seats, they would either have to get a second coach or whatever or tell the 2 extras to drive to another place first - causing endless hassle.

They don't need to do that, if the coaches run on a commercial demand basis - just as National Express already do.

[gfa]

4 minutes ago, incident said:

They don't need to do that, if the coaches run on a commercial demand basis - just as National Express already do.

Surely this loses them money, no reason to move it to national express who will price gouge the tickets closer to the festival too etc. Really cannot see this happening - the current system is a pain but it works well enough imo

[incident]

10 minutes ago, gfa said:

Surely this loses them money, no reason to move it to national express who will price gouge the tickets closer to the festival too etc. Really cannot see this happening - the current system is a pain but it works well enough imo

I don't think you've understood my suggestion.

I'm not suggesting moving it to National Express - rather, I'm suggesting opening it up so that any scheduled coach service counts. That could be the existing See coaches sold on a demand basis, and could be National Express alongside that. That way people don't need to be tied to a departure point. In an ideal world they'd even open up access to the coach station further so that eg. Big Green Coach etc could offer services - but that's probably a step too far.

People would book a "only valid with coach" ticket, then book a coach service at their convenience.

I don't believe the current system works at all well when you have stories every year of people travelling in the wrong direction and booking hotel rooms in order to get a service that no longer works for them, or in a handful of cases never worked for them but was the only option.

[gfa]

1 hour ago, incident said:

I don't think you've understood my suggestion.

I'm not suggesting moving it to National Express - rather, I'm suggesting opening it up so that any scheduled coach service counts. That could be the existing See coaches sold on a demand basis, and could be National Express alongside that. That way people don't need to be tied to a departure point. In an ideal world they'd even open up access to the coach station further so that eg. Big Green Coach etc could offer services - but that's probably a step too far.

People would book a "only valid with coach" ticket, then book a coach service at their convenience.

I don't believe the current system works at all well when you have stories every year of people travelling in the wrong direction and booking hotel rooms in order to get a service that no longer works for them, or in a handful of cases never worked for them but was the only option.

How many people in the grand scheme of things do you think actually travel the wrong way and get hotels. less than 0.1% maybe outside the efests bubble maybe?

I didn't initially get your suggestion but what your suggesting will lead to so many empty seats i think, it just doesn't make sense to change it as it works 'well enough' as it is.

[incident]

1 hour ago, gfa said:

How many people in the grand scheme of things do you think actually travel the wrong way and get hotels. less than 0.1% maybe outside the efests bubble maybe?

I didn't initially get your suggestion but what your suggesting will lead to so many empty seats i think, it just doesn't make sense to change it as it works 'well enough' as it is.

Way more than that. I'd guess it's somewhere around the ~5% range are going from a departure point other than their preferred option. Even if it's half that it'd still be way too high. I've seen it from both ends -

I've seen it in the sale when people in our group start bargaining along the lines of "I'll take anywhere south of Glasgow". Even knowing that they'll get another stab at it on Sunday, people do panic.

Then on the coach itself, anecdotally there always seems to be a few people who'd prefer a different departure point. Some of that will be people who just took what they could get, some of that is people who've subsequently had changes in their lives and moved away.

I don't believe for a second that allowing flexibility on which coach people use would lead to any measurable increase on empty seats over current rates - you already get people skipping unsuitable return trips and in some cases the outward ones as well.

All of that is without even considering people who may have their desired departure point but could only get an unwanted day (I mean, who really wants to go Thursday), or who need a hotel in order to get a 6am departure because public transport isn't running yet. Or those who get assigned a coach that doesn't arrive on site until 8pm and feel cheated on missing out on the bulk of the day.

It shouldn't be too hard to accommodate that while still maintaining the integrity of the "coach only" tickets required by the licence. I absolutely don't accept that it works "well enough" as is, or even close to it. The system as is meets the licence requirements, and so arguably "works" for the festival, but in customer experience terms absolutely does not.

[clarkete]

27 minutes ago, incident said:

Way more than that. I'd guess it's somewhere around the ~5% range are going from a departure point other than their preferred option. Even if it's half that it'd still be way too high. I've seen it from both ends -

I've seen it in the sale when people in our group start bargaining along the lines of "I'll take anywhere south of Glasgow". Even knowing that they'll get another stab at it on Sunday, people do panic.

Then on the coach itself, anecdotally there always seems to be a few people who'd prefer a different departure point. Some of that will be people who just took what they could get, some of that is people who've subsequently had changes in their lives and moved away.

I don't believe for a second that allowing flexibility on which coach people use would lead to any measurable increase on empty seats over current rates - you already get people skipping unsuitable return trips and in some cases the outward ones as well.

All of that is without even considering people who may have their desired departure point but could only get an unwanted day (I mean, who really wants to go Thursday), or who need a hotel in order to get a 6am departure because public transport isn't running yet. Or those who get assigned a coach that doesn't arrive on site until 8pm and feel cheated on missing out on the bulk of the day.

It shouldn't be too hard to accommodate that while still maintaining the integrity of the "coach only" tickets required by the licence. I absolutely don't accept that it works "well enough" as is, or even close to it. The system as is meets the licence requirements, and so arguably "works" for the festival, but in customer experience terms absolutely does not.

How many times have you used see coaches? 

I've done about half a dozen, only been forced to travel elsewhere twice, once in resale & once when they still did secret resales - no hotels in either instances just fairly minor inconvenience. 

As @gfa says, they've always full and with punters who are very happy. They won't change it because it works and has for years.

The one thing you always see, as reflected in posts here and a small sample of passengers - they wish they had GA tickets. 

[MaxPower]

2 hours ago, clarkete said:

How many times have you used see coaches? 

I've done about half a dozen, only been forced to travel elsewhere twice, once in resale & once when they still did secret resales - no hotels in either instances just fairly minor inconvenience. 

As @gfa says, they've always full and with punters who are very happy. They won't change it because it works and has for years.

The one thing you always see, as reflected in posts here and a small sample of passengers - they wish they had GA tickets. 

Of my group of 11 on our coach this year, 5 of us had to travel from absurd locations to get the coach.

[danmarks]

Just to point out (mainly cos im awake at 6.30am and feel like ive got a,hangover but havent srunk) , if you extrapolate your figures clarkette that would be a 33percent total of people having to travel to get coaches. 

However if im totally honest i dont understand the idea being suggested anyway. 

There are still going to be coaches running to other places during Glastonbury as there always are so where does the pool of coaches available to everyone from exactly where they want come from?

I'm sure i'm being dense but i genuinely cant see it.

You get 17 people from some small town in devon and 5 from some village north of scotland - do they get their own coach? And all on Wednesday before midday? 

 

[gfa]

7 hours ago, incident said:

Way more than that. I'd guess it's somewhere around the ~5% range are going from a departure point other than their preferred option. Even if it's half that it'd still be way too high. I've seen it from both ends -

I've seen it in the sale when people in our group start bargaining along the lines of "I'll take anywhere south of Glasgow". Even knowing that they'll get another stab at it on Sunday, people do panic.

Then on the coach itself, anecdotally there always seems to be a few people who'd prefer a different departure point. Some of that will be people who just took what they could get, some of that is people who've subsequently had changes in their lives and moved away.

I don't believe for a second that allowing flexibility on which coach people use would lead to any measurable increase on empty seats over current rates - you already get people skipping unsuitable return trips and in some cases the outward ones as well.

All of that is without even considering people who may have their desired departure point but could only get an unwanted day (I mean, who really wants to go Thursday), or who need a hotel in order to get a 6am departure because public transport isn't running yet. Or those who get assigned a coach that doesn't arrive on site until 8pm and feel cheated on missing out on the bulk of the day.

It shouldn't be too hard to accommodate that while still maintaining the integrity of the "coach only" tickets required by the licence. I absolutely don't accept that it works "well enough" as is, or even close to it. The system as is meets the licence requirements, and so arguably "works" for the festival, but in customer experience terms absolutely does not.

Maybe there should be a system to swap coach slots instead.

[gooner1990]

7 hours ago, incident said:

Way more than that. I'd guess it's somewhere around the ~5% range are going from a departure point other than their preferred option. Even if it's half that it'd still be way too high. I've seen it from both ends -

I've seen it in the sale when people in our group start bargaining along the lines of "I'll take anywhere south of Glasgow". Even knowing that they'll get another stab at it on Sunday, people do panic.

Then on the coach itself, anecdotally there always seems to be a few people who'd prefer a different departure point. Some of that will be people who just took what they could get, some of that is people who've subsequently had changes in their lives and moved away.

I don't believe for a second that allowing flexibility on which coach people use would lead to any measurable increase on empty seats over current rates - you already get people skipping unsuitable return trips and in some cases the outward ones as well.

All of that is without even considering people who may have their desired departure point but could only get an unwanted day (I mean, who really wants to go Thursday), or who need a hotel in order to get a 6am departure because public transport isn't running yet. Or those who get assigned a coach that doesn't arrive on site until 8pm and feel cheated on missing out on the bulk of the day.

It shouldn't be too hard to accommodate that while still maintaining the integrity of the "coach only" tickets required by the licence. I absolutely don't accept that it works "well enough" as is, or even close to it. The system as is meets the licence requirements, and so arguably "works" for the festival, but in customer experience terms absolutely does not.

A guy I work with goes to Glastonbury on and off...he missed it this year but two of his mates got tickets in the resale...from Southampton (we live nr Oxford)

They had to drive to Southampton the night before, stayed in a hotel, paid to park the car for 5 nights, go to the festival, and then go back to Southampton on the Monday to collect the car and then drive home to Oxford.

Madness!

[incident]

6 hours ago, clarkete said:

How many times have you used see coaches? 

I've done about half a dozen, only been forced to travel elsewhere twice, once in resale & once when they still did secret resales - no hotels in either instances just fairly minor inconvenience. 

As @gfa says, they've always full and with punters who are very happy. They won't change it because it works and has for years.

The one thing you always see, as reflected in posts here and a small sample of passengers - they wish they had GA tickets. 

I've used See myself a couple times, and have booked on behalf of others several more.

I'm not saying it's a majority, or even close - I said my guess would be 5%, but I think if anything I'm underestimating there.

[incident]

6 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

A guy I work with goes to Glastonbury on and off...he missed it this year but two of his mates got tickets in the resale...from Southampton (we live nr Oxford)

They had to drive to Southampton the night before, stayed in a hotel, paid to park the car for 5 nights, go to the festival, and then go back to Southampton on the Monday to collect the car and then drive home to Oxford.

Madness!

And there's the problem in a nutshell.

I'm assuming the person in question isn't even a Glastonbury obsessive who spends half his day on a forum discussing it?

[p.pete]

12 hours ago, incident said:

I don't understand why they even need to lock any of the tickets to specific departure points or services.

Sell say 30,000 festival tickets that are only valid if travelling on an approved service. Then sell the actual coach tickets separately. Can also open it up so that National Express coaches count as an approved service. Stamp* peoples tickets as they get off the coaches to validate them.

Then, most importantly, make it clear that they're actually going to enforce this and people with a coach ticket who turn up by car will be turned away without refund.

*Stamp is an example, there's dozens of ways they could achieve this same end result.

Great idea - they could properly up the amount of people travelling by public transport - make it 50/70k, include trains (maybe).  People like me suddenly having to go for public transport to have a reasonable chance of a ticket would possibly even mean less 'stuff' getting transported to (and hopefully) from the festival.

Glad you said stamps were just an example - I can imagine them becoming very valuable and going missing 😄 

[gooner1990]

1 hour ago, incident said:

And there's the problem in a nutshell.

I'm assuming the person in question isn't even a Glastonbury obsessive who spends half his day on a forum discussing it?

I don't know him personally, but I would assume not.

These were just two guys who got tickets in the April resale - and panicked when they got through and could only get Southampton that was near (ish) to us.

[TGCarr]

Tried some Seeticket theories today with Sam Fender tickets.

Desktop without refreshing did not get through.

Mobile x Data x refreshing every minute got me in within 5mins.

 

All complete random. But I'm fairly lucky these days at getting tickets in general.

[moonhunter]

Hi all! 2 questions: 

1. I never saw an option last year to add a PA ticket to the coach and we ended up having to travel separately. Silly q but does anyone have an idea roughly where on the screen / form it tends to be? Would be great if there are pics of what the form looks like floating around actually as I’ve got someone trying this year who has no idea what to expect, and I’m worried the PA thing might panic them in the moment as it did me! I’m assuming it’s the same place you add an extra seat for a child? 

2. Do the London coaches tend to go quicker or are they a larger portion of tickets so tend to stick around? Wondering whether I should instruct my friends to go for other cities if London has ran out. 

PS. Only doing for two people (plus my PA) - both coach & general - so would be happy to buddy up with anyone on here! 

[gooner1990]

45 minutes ago, moonhunter said:

Hi all! 2 questions: 

1. I never saw an option last year to add a PA ticket to the coach and we ended up having to travel separately. Silly q but does anyone have an idea roughly where on the screen / form it tends to be? Would be great if there are pics of what the form looks like floating around actually as I’ve got someone trying this year who has no idea what to expect, and I’m worried the PA thing might panic them in the moment as it did me! I’m assuming it’s the same place you add an extra seat for a child? 

2. Do the London coaches tend to go quicker or are they a larger portion of tickets so tend to stick around? Wondering whether I should instruct my friends to go for other cities if London has ran out. 

PS. Only doing for two people (plus my PA) - both coach & general - so would be happy to buddy up with anyone on here! 

@incident It's started already! 😄 

[clarkete]

6 hours ago, danmarks said:

Just to point out (mainly cos im awake at 6.30am and feel like ive got a,hangover but havent srunk) , if you extrapolate your figures clarkette that would be a 33percent total of people having to travel to get coaches. 

However if im totally honest i dont understand the idea being suggested anyway. 

There are still going to be coaches running to other places during Glastonbury as there always are so where does the pool of coaches available to everyone from exactly where they want come from?

I'm sure i'm being dense but i genuinely cant see it.

You get 17 people from some small town in devon and 5 from some village north of scotland - do they get their own coach? And all on Wednesday before midday? 

 

But as I said - both of those instances were resales /secret resales - where of course the pool and choices available are smaller.  Even in my resale group this year (which was one of my two) many of the participants got their desired location.

 

Like you, I've never heard another option which I thought was straightforward, as easy for them to manage and would both keep the coaches full and not result in an increase of coaches in the Pilton roads and festival coach park. 

[Zoo Music Girl]

1 hour ago, moonhunter said:

Hi all! 2 questions: 

1. I never saw an option last year to add a PA ticket to the coach and we ended up having to travel separately. Silly q but does anyone have an idea roughly where on the screen / form it tends to be? Would be great if there are pics of what the form looks like floating around actually as I’ve got someone trying this year who has no idea what to expect, and I’m worried the PA thing might panic them in the moment as it did me! I’m assuming it’s the same place you add an extra seat for a child? 

2. Do the London coaches tend to go quicker or are they a larger portion of tickets so tend to stick around? Wondering whether I should instruct my friends to go for other cities if London has ran out. 

PS. Only doing for two people (plus my PA) - both coach & general - so would be happy to buddy up with anyone on here! 

We also want a PA ticket next year but I think we are going to just get two deposits for the person and the PA and then cancel the deposit for the PA once confirmed. Partly as we want to try coach and partly because we are just too scared to not get everyone a ticket all at once! Appreciate this will incur an admin charge though.

I don't think there is an option on the booking screen. I think you just have to email them after you have the ticket for the person that requires a PA.

Pretty sure there are more London coaches. We are London based so go for them anyway but if its easy to get to for you I'd probably be tempted. Being able to choose departure time is also a bonus.

[Zoo Music Girl]

1 minute ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

We also want a PA ticket next year but I think we are going to just get two deposits for the person and the PA and then cancel the deposit for the PA once confirmed. Partly as we want to try coach and partly because we are just too scared to not get everyone a ticket all at once! Appreciate this will incur an admin charge though.

I don't think there is an option on the booking screen. I think you just have to email them after you have the ticket for the person that requires a PA.

Pretty sure there are more London coaches. We are London based so go for them anyway but if its easy to get to for you I'd probably be tempted. Being able to choose departure time is also a bonus.

I misunderstood you - sounds like you are  London based too. But I'd be surprised if London sells out quicker than anywhere else.