2024 Ticket Buying Tips

[BenG92]

6 minutes ago, Nick_ said:

I am not in a position to recruit dozens of friends to help buy the single ticket that I want. So, if you increase your chances, as someone with lots of friends willing to help, you decrease mine.

if you have internet access, you are in that position. 

[stuie]

3 minutes ago, ProperTea said:

My friend got through 6 times and bought tickets for 36 of us. I am afraid to ask whether any nefarious efforts were used and the others in my group (who aren't eFesties/across online festival chatter) are just like "wow that's amazing, you're so lucky!"... I guess what I'm saying is, would it be fair to cancel all tickets bought on those servers if people didn't even know this method had been used to acquire their tickets?

They won't cancel those tickets, even if it's confirmed that they were purchase using nefarious means.  They won't want that PR.  End of the day, if your system can be manipulated you need to improve your system. 

[Nobby's Old Boots]

16 minutes ago, tarw said:

But life’s not fair

And I'm sure you use this phrase across every single aspect of life's unfairness and not just when it suits you. 

I'm sure...

[danmarks]

2 minutes ago, ProperTea said:

My friend got through 6 times and bought tickets for 36 of us. I am afraid to ask whether any nefarious efforts were used and the others in my group (who aren't eFesties/across online festival chatter) are just like "wow that's amazing, you're so lucky!"... I guess what I'm saying is, would it be fair to cancel all tickets bought on those servers if people didn't even know this method had been used to acquire their tickets?

Apparently life isn't fair so you would just shrug your shoulders and move on.

(No - it would be a sh*t move, but the grey area is when people start chucking a few quid to a 'friend of a friend". If this goes unchecked then it is - as people have already said- touting but front loaded 

[Nick_]

2 minutes ago, stuie said:

Regardless of your number of friends, you can still hit F5 over and over and over or use another device at the same time.  By doing so, you'll increase your chances. 

In the case of a lottery, your odds of getting a ticket are fixed and there's nothing you can do to increase your odds.

I'd have thought most people would prefer a system whereby the amount of effort you make could pay off. 

In the nicest possible way Nick, people care about their own chances - not yours!

* disclaimer - I don't buy a ticket for myself. 

Better to open it up to touts, then, and let people increase their chances by deciding how much money they want to spend?  That would probably be up with tickets available between the current price and the thousands for "hospitality" tickets.

[gooner1990]

2 minutes ago, stuie said:

They won't cancel those tickets, even if it's confirmed that they were purchase using nefarious means.  They won't want that PR.  End of the day, if your system can be manipulated you need to improve your system. 

Agreed.

The only situation I can think of them having to refund would be if the backdoor links had enabled more tickets to be sold than the licence holds for (which they didn't)

[Nick_]

3 minutes ago, BenG92 said:

if you have internet access, you are in that position. 

Not in any way that appears sensible to.me.  Unless there are escrow agencies involved?

[Nobby's Old Boots]

8 minutes ago, ProperTea said:

My friend (well, not a friend but someone in our wider group) got through 6 times and bought tickets for 36 of us in our spreadsheet. I am afraid to ask whether any nefarious efforts were used and the others in my group (who aren't eFesties/across online festival chatter) are just like "wow that's amazing, you're so lucky!"... I guess what I'm saying is, would it be fair to cancel all tickets bought on those servers if people didn't even know this method had been used to acquire their tickets? All we were told by the person that got our tickets who was in the wider group was that he'd managed to get through 6 times, that was it. It's only after the fact that I'm seeing all this stuff about backdoors and piecing things together and feeling concerned.

A fair point - I would have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the likely many people in your situation who would be I imagine very confused and extremely upset, but if they did do it I guess you'd have to say it's one of the risks of allowing someone you don't really know buy you tickets, because let's face it there are a lot of benefits to it (increased chances with more people trying etc), but this is a big risk.

As it is, as others have said, it's very unlikely anything will be done as they don't want the heat.

[BenG92]

Just now, Nick_ said:

Not in any way that appears sensible to.me.  Unless there are escrow agencies involved?

Thinking it isn't a sensible approach isn't the same thing as you not being in a position to do it. People have done this for years, the idea that someone's going to not pay you their deposit money back knowing full well you could just dispute the transaction is going to be a rare scenario - they're doing it because they want to go to the festival. 

[Crazyfool01]

2 minutes ago, Nick_ said:

Not in any way that appears sensible to.me.  Unless there are escrow agencies involved?

We’ve had spreadsheets available to everyone that posts on efests for the last 3 festivals …. Those people become friends as you help each other get tickets . In fact one of my best mates is someone I started a resale spreadsheet with on here 

[Kg2021]

I quite frankly haven’t got a clue what any of this means. All I know is that I love Glastonbury and am utterly devo that I didn’t get tickets yesterday. To read that the system could be taken advantage of by people who are tech savvy makes it worse. It’s just a real bloody shame .

[DeanoL]

53 minutes ago, Nick_ said:

Thanks for the clear and patient explanation @mjfromthelane - much appreciated.

Wow.  I had no idea that's what one was meant to - I assumed you got in, and either there was a queue or some kind of random selection process.  This does feel either pointless or immoral, though.  Is there any evidence it does actually increase your chances?  If it does, presumably it is at the expense of people who don't know you are meant to be doing this, or (like nuclear weapons) everyone feels they need to do it because everyone else does.

Either way, if there are people who feel you only "deserve" tickets if you do this, I can't agree with that.

I did notice that the holding page didn't mention "you can manually refresh" this time around. It did just say "this page will refresh in 20 seconds" which I do think makes a big difference for those who are new and have no idea what they're doing.

25 minutes ago, danmarks said:

However people try to justify using hacks or whatever you want to call it -because you can - doesnt make it right. Because others are doing it and why not- doesn't make it right. Because the system is broken to people who know what they're doing doesnt make it right. People can justify anything to themselves if it enables them to get what they want but it ultimately stinks for those who havent got these advantages. 

Doesn't make it wrong either. Same goes for setting up big groups of syndicates. At no point do See/Glastonbury say "you may only buy tickets from this server" nor do they say "you may only buy tickets for your group". In both cases they are possible, I suspect if we're talking about intent, if it were up to them, Glastonbury would like neither to be possible. But reality is tickets were sold to both.

[DeanoL]

20 minutes ago, stuie said:

Literally all of this ^^

I don't see why people would not want a situation that is gamed by more effort, more devices, more friends trying etc.

To leave it in the hands of a lottery would decrease your individual chances.

Depends how many friends and devices you have I guess? I was trying for a friend of a friend this year. Guy in his 50s, never been to Glastonbury, always wanted to go, was going to go on his own, been trying the past five years, just one person after one ticket... his odds are really not great. 

You have to question where it ends, because people are fine with more effort, or more devices, but then someone codes a bot that simulates 500 devices and uses it to secure a load of tickets. Then loads more people do the same. A situation that rewards effort is only good if you're putting in more effort than the average person. If you're putting in less, then actually your odds are reduced.

This forum is a good example of how things have progressed. Been a pretty good success rate on here for most of the 00s and early 10s as the advice of "have everyone in your group try, have 2 or 3 devices if possible, keep refreshing" put you well above what the average person was doing.

That's not the case anymore. People are a lot more on it. They're forming huge groups that work as syndicates to help get tickets. They're using auto-refresh programmes. They're using bots. They're using clever network knowledge. The average effort people are putting in is going up. Just doing what I said in the last paragraph may not even be above average any more.

(And y'know, fundamentally, people might just want a fairer system out of principle, even if it reduces their own chances. Same reason I'll vote Labour even if the Tories want to give me money)

[august1]

is there any moral difference in this IP lark from using a page monitoring tool for secret resales?

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

31 minutes ago, stuie said:

Literally all of this ^^

I don't see why people would not want a situation that is gamed by more effort, more devices, more friends trying etc.

To leave it in the hands of a lottery would decrease your individual chances.

Maybe they aren't self obsessed?

I would much prefer losing out in a fair system, than losing to a bunch of online dorks that have the most efficient method for gaming the system, which is the inevitable end game of the current system. 

I also think it's bad in general for the festival to have an ever aging and jaded crowd bringing nothing new or fresh to the festival.

(Efesters currently love this as they have been in their golden era with large buying blocks, although I suspect they've been beaten in the last year or two by discord groups as the younger generation get interested in the festival and interested to see how opinions shift when they begin to be on the losing end)

[Xeph1995]

2 minutes ago, august1 said:

is there any moral difference in this IP lark from using a page monitoring tool for secret resales?

No 

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

5 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

 

You have to question where it ends, because people are fine with more effort, or more devices, but then someone codes a bot that simulates 500 devices and uses it to secure a load of tickets. Then loads more people do the same

(And y'know, fundamentally, people might just want a fairer system out of principle, even if it reduces their own chances. Same reason I'll vote Labour even if the Tories want to give me money)

Out of upvotes but yes, pretty much what I'm getting at. 

[Nick_]

5 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I was trying for a friend of a friend this year. Guy in his 50s, never been to Glastonbury, always wanted to go, was going to go on his own, been trying the past five years, just one person after one ticket... his odds are really not great. 

 

I think that Glastonbury wants to minimise the number of people like that attending.  What they want most of  are groups of young people who know each other and have connections to other groups , preferably well populated with people who have been before, and who are grateful for being there after having jumped through all the hoops, because that is what will give the best atmosphere for lowest cost.

[Joey Peeps]

If someone has a bot simulating 500 devices wouldn't that fall foul of the refresh limit? Or does the bot simulate individual IP addresses too?

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, Nick_ said:

I think that Glastonbury wants to minimise the number of people like that attending.  What they want most of  are groups of young people who know each other and have connections to other groups , preferably well populated with people who have been before, and who are grateful for being there after having jumped through all the hoops, because that is what will give the best atmosphere for lowest cost.

I don't think that's true. If it were for a start the maximum group size would be higher than 6. 

I do think that's where they've ended up, but I don't think it's intentional at all.

[incident]

3 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I don't think that's true. If it were for a start the maximum group size would be higher than 6.

Indeed - the maximum group used to be 8 (ages ago)

[Nick_]

26 minutes ago, Crazyfool01 said:

We’ve had spreadsheets available to everyone that posts on efests for the last 3 festivals …. Those people become friends as you help each other get tickets . In fact one of my best mates is someone I started a resale spreadsheet with on here 

What do the spreadsheets do?

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, Nick_ said:

What do the spreadsheets do?

It’s a way of getting a team of helpers together to help chances . 

[stuie]

15 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Depends how many friends and devices you have I guess? I was trying for a friend of a friend this year. Guy in his 50s, never been to Glastonbury, always wanted to go, was going to go on his own, been trying the past five years, just one person after one ticket... his odds are really not great. 

You have to question where it ends, because people are fine with more effort, or more devices, but then someone codes a bot that simulates 500 devices and uses it to secure a load of tickets. Then loads more people do the same. A situation that rewards effort is only good if you're putting in more effort than the average person. If you're putting in less, then actually your odds are reduced.

This forum is a good example of how things have progressed. Been a pretty good success rate on here for most of the 00s and early 10s as the advice of "have everyone in your group try, have 2 or 3 devices if possible, keep refreshing" put you well above what the average person was doing.

That's not the case anymore. People are a lot more on it. They're forming huge groups that work as syndicates to help get tickets. They're using auto-refresh programmes. They're using bots. They're using clever network knowledge. The average effort people are putting in is going up. Just doing what I said in the last paragraph may not even be above average any more.

(And y'know, fundamentally, people might just want a fairer system out of principle, even if it reduces their own chances. Same reason I'll vote Labour even if the Tories want to give me money)

I still haven't seen any evidence of these bots securing hundreds of tickets.  They'd need access to masses of IP addresses too.  I've seen plenty of evidence of people just getting lucky and getting tickets. 

I don't think using this forum as a measure is accurate either as a massive chunk of it's past users now reside elsewhere on the internet, for one reason or another!

 

11 minutes ago, BBC7BBCHEAVEN said:

Maybe they aren't self obsessed?

I would much prefer losing out in a fair system, than losing to a bunch of online dorks that have the most efficient method for gaming the system, which is the inevitable end game of the current system. 

I also think it's bad in general for the festival to have an ever aging and jaded crowd bringing nothing new or fresh to the festival.

(Efesters currently love this as they have been in their golden era with large buying blocks, although I suspect they've been beaten in the last year or two by discord groups as the younger generation get interested in the festival and interested to see how opinions shift when they begin to be on the losing end)

As above, I don't see any evidence of gaming the system.   My group have never been in buying blocks apart from themselves and people they've recruited to help them. 

I'm confused by your post - are the online dorks the same people as the ever aging and jaded crowd and 'efesters'?
Or are you just gunning at everyone?

[Nick_]

7 minutes ago, Crazyfool01 said:

It’s a way of getting a team of helpers together to help chances . 

Sure, I got that, but what do the spreadsheets actually do?