2024 Ticket Buying Tips

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, JoeyT said:

Yep, we've had our fill.

Everyone back to an even playing field next year is the best outcome for this whole situation.

💯 agree 

[Supreme2]

Oh so are we saying refreshing is session based and not IP based? Always thought it was the latter 

[Nick_]

2 hours ago, briddj said:

Yep. Never believed in the effect of the limit so stuck to the usual plan of 2 seconds across 5 browsers, plus another 2 on 20 seconds with some manual quick refreshing. I got our tickets.

Are these all on the same public IP address, or are some going via (different) VPNs, 4G/5G, neighbours WiFi, etc?

[Nick_]

15 minutes ago, BookAngel said:

. 

Now assume that, as with the spreadsheet I was on, half of the groups get through to buy tickets. In theory, each person with a ticket can then start helping the next ticketless group on the spreadsheet. Now each ticketless person has on average 12 people trying for them.  

But for us, that was as high as it got, because none of the lead bookers was able to get through for a second time before the sale ended. So in spite of being in a large group, each individual member only had between 6 - 12 people trying on their behalf. Even with extra helpers roped in, that's not a massive advantage. 

 

 

Even that is still 12 times the number of people I had trying to get my ticket...

[Nick_]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

A ballot system would keep groups of friends together better, as you could remove the 6-person limit. Mathematically, you could enter the ballot as any size group you wanted, and your odds would be the exact same. One group, one entry. Doesn't matter if it's a group of 2 or a group of 26. So you could actually guarantee that friends didn't get left behind. The only reason you'd need a limit would be administratively, but you could easily make it much higher than the current 6.

Again, ballot might not be the best way of doing things, but it'd actually improve issues with not everyone in the group getting to go.

(Of course, it would also remove the advantage large groups currently have over smaller groups, which means overall the odds of a group of 24 getting to go would be reduced. But in terms of keeping groups together it helps.)

IIRC, this how the 2012 Olympics worked.

[DeanoL]

18 minutes ago, BookAngel said:

 Can I put forward the theory that I'm not so sure the oft-quoted advantage of being in a big buying group is as unfair as it's being made out to be? And that maybe those mythical people on Discord who are rumoured to have got through time after time were already taking advantage of the IP hacks? 

It's not a guarantee at all - a work colleague of mine had a group of 24 all trying and none of them got anything in the main sale (they got one group through in the coach sale).

But it does tilt the odds and it can snowball. If one group get through really early (first five minutes) then the odds get much better.

[Nick_]

43 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

What do you think the dire consequences of letting touts buy tickets were? Again, Glasto invested in a whole new, never done before photo registration ticket system just to stop touts. Regardless of the fact that touts actually increased demand, made tickets harder to get hold of, increased the rarity and let them say "sold out in minutes". A entire new ticketing system just to make it fairer. 

I mean, maybe they've changed and wouldn't do that if we were in a similar situation today. 

Surely touts make tickets easier to get, just more expensive?

[Physical_graffiti]

Lads, ballot = many more people applying for tickets = much less chance of getting tickets for ALL of us = glasto pretty much over as a thing in our lives. This is a bad thing!

People will always say “unfair” when they don’t get tickets. Same every year and will be regardless of sales method (“I’ve entered the ballot every year for a decade and nothing yet you see the same people going! It’s a fix!” Etc)

[Cheesey]

2 minutes ago, Physical_graffiti said:

Lads, ballot = many more people applying for tickets = much less chance of getting tickets for ALL of us

This is my general opinion. Be careful what you wish for.

Yes, a ballot would be fair. But so many people would apply that it would probably reduce everyone's individual chance of getting tickets to about once every ten years.

[Ayrshire Chris]

Ballots would not work, no way to scrutinise how fair it would be, loads of more less committed people just trying. I’ve even heard the idea of priority for those who missed out the previous year, on the condition that they were registered for that previous year.That again throws up more problems. 
no matter what happens demand will always massively outstrip supply. 

[eatingglitter]

Not to mention that you only need to look at things like compers etc, who just apply for everything that they fancy. If you have Sky there's ballots for all sorts. None of those things I would even bother trying for if I had to sit down and plan out how I was going to do it. 

EDIT: and even if there was a ballot people would still think it was rigged somehow.
https://www.reuters.com/article/olympics-emptyseats-idINDEE86T02220120730/ 

Edited November 21, 2023 by eatingglitter

[skinnymike]

37 minutes ago, Supreme2 said:

Oh so are we saying refreshing is session based and not IP based? Always thought it was the latter 

It's 100% session-based. I know because when I got through I was looking to see if all my browser sessions got through at the same time but only one did.

[Adster]

40 minutes ago, BookAngel said:

 Can I put forward the theory that I'm not so sure the oft-quoted advantage of being in a big buying group is as unfair as it's being made out to be? And that maybe those mythical people on Discord who are rumoured to have got through time after time were already taking advantage of the IP hacks? 

Look at it in terms of the number of people in a group trying for just one person's ticket at any one time.  Everyone in a group of 6 starts off trying for their own group first. So that's 6 people trying on behalf of each individual. 

Now assume that, as with the spreadsheet I was on, half of the groups get through to buy tickets. In theory, each person with a ticket can then start helping the next ticketless group on the spreadsheet. Now each ticketless person has on average 12 people trying for them.  

But for us, that was as high as it got, because none of the lead bookers was able to get through for a second time before the sale ended. So in spite of being in a large group, each individual member only had between 6 - 12 people trying on their behalf. Even with extra helpers roped in, that's not a massive advantage. 

I suspect it's not easy at all to get back to the booking screen a second time, and that most of the people rumoured to have managed this were only enabled by means of the IP hacks already discussed. 

In summary, I don't think that forming syndicates with other forum members should be blamed for hoovering up all the tickets. The real issue is the IP hacks!

 

Edit: Just to add that the biggest advantage of being in our group was the brilliant organiser who made a massive effort to keep our spreadsheet up to date and organised!

This is all true if you get put back in the queue once you've bought tickets, but thats not always the case.  As such you only need one person out of the entire group to get in and you can buy all the tickets without further queuing.

I got nowhere this year but I have personally experienced being able to get back in without queuing in the past, no tricks used.

[incident]

56 minutes ago, Crazyfool01 said:

No tech knowledge but they are supposed to have fixed it haven’t they ? Isn’t that the best thing ? That takes us back a stage doesn’t it ? 

There do seem to be some indications that they've made a change. But I don't think it's safe to say for sure until we've seen it in effect during another sale.

[Chicken Bob]

2 hours ago, fraybentos1 said:

What was your strategy? How many tabs or browsers and how quick each refresh?

. 1 browser. refreshed every 0.37 seconds. Got through after 6 mins. Froze up. Had to start again. Got through again 40 mins later 

[mjfromthelane]

When people use the auto-refresh, how do you stop it refreshing when it enters the ticket buying page? Or does it know when to stop refreshing if the URL changes?

[sleepwalk]

9 minutes ago, mjfromthelane said:

When people use the auto-refresh, how do you stop it refreshing when it enters the ticket buying page? Or does it know when to stop refreshing if the URL changes?

You can set up an auto-refresher to look for certain text on the page.

I.e. when the text "Deposits" is found then it wil stop auto refreshing, or even when text is no longer present on the page.

[Nick_]

7 minutes ago, sleepwalk said:

You can set up an auto-refresher to look for certain text on the page.

I.e. when the text "Deposits" is found then it wil stop auto refreshing, or even when text is no longer present on the page.

How do you know what text appears on the page you are waiting for?

[Gnomicide]

3 minutes ago, Nick_ said:

How do you know what text appears on the page you are waiting for?

There were examples on the official site ina guide to buying tickets.

[Gnomicide]

I'd rather miss out to someone who is dedicated enough to figure out a way to get through for them and their mates than to someone who filled out an online form on a whim and forgot all about it until they wake up to an email telling them if they were successful or not.

[kpins]

As demand hugely outstrips supply, there will never be a fair system. I've missed out on the last few but got tickets this year. Swings and roundabouts and plenty of non tech folk got tickets (me included). The thing that worked for me was multiple tabs, but when one got through they all got through so I closed all apart from one

 

[CurlyPutz]

10 minutes ago, kpins said:

As demand hugely outstrips supply, there will never be a fair system. I've missed out on the last few but got tickets this year. Swings and roundabouts and plenty of non tech folk got tickets (me included). The thing that worked for me was multiple tabs, but when one got through they all got through so I closed all apart from one

 

That's really interesting feedback on the tabs. Opens up another route for batch buying in bulk surely. 

I have always gone 1 tab multiple browsers, chrome, egde, Firefox. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by CurlyPutz
Typo

[Cheesey]

2 minutes ago, kpins said:

The thing that worked for me was multiple tabs, but when one got through they all got through so I closed all apart from one

Yes, that's because all those tabs were sharing the same session.

Multiple tabs can be useful in that it allows you to leave them all refreshing on their own every 20s (each one offset slightly rather than all refreshing at the same time), instead of hammering F5 on a single tab.

[Cheesey]

3 minutes ago, CurlyPutz said:

Opens up another route for batch buying in bulk surely.

It shouldn't.

Once you've used one of the tabs to buy tickets, the single session they're sharing should be invalidated, and the forms on the other tabs shouldn't work - i.e. you should get kicked back to the holding page when you try and submit them.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Cheesey

[kpins]

5 minutes ago, Cheesey said:

Yes, that's because all those tabs were sharing the same session.

Multiple tabs can be useful in that it allows you to leave them all refreshing on their own every 20s (each one offset slightly rather than all refreshing at the same time), instead of hammering F5 on a single tab.

Ah thanks for explaining