How I would fix the ticket system

[danz026]

Let me start by saying that there’s no perfect system and when demand FAR outweighs supply, there are always going to be a lot of disappointed people. I do agree with Emily that a balance has to be struck between giving everyone a somewhat fair chance, but those who really want to be there getting a better chance than the “I’ll just give it a try” applicants, so a proper ballot is out of the question.

 

I would slightly challenge the assumption that everyone who “really wants to be there” is able to figure out loopholes in the system. It’s particularly difficult for groups like my own who’ve never been before but had been specifically planning a “Glastonbury 2025” trip for years. We simply don’t have the numbers to form a big cartel, the tech knowledge to have hundreds of unique tabs on the go, or the contacts in the “Glastonbury club” to be in the know how to beat the system.

 

Contrary to popular belief, the new system is far less gameable by bots than the old one, so I would like to see a variation the new system retained. However, I would make the following changes:

 

1. Firstly, I would make it that you have to log in to the waiting room using your registration to even get into the queue. At the moment you could have several computers with hundreds of tabs each (using chrome profiles or Firefox containers) and you just wait and see which of them gets to the front first. It’s a pure numbers game. I make a back-of-the-envelope calculation that a single tab on a single device has a 2.8% chance of getting tickets across the coach and general sale. If you have 100 of them on the go then that jumps to 95% chance that at least one will be successful. 200 on the go means 99.7% chance. I would make it a single queue ID per registration to immediately solve this problem.

 

2. To combat multiple registrations, I would suggest that it should be a single registration per name and postcode (for example you could have two Michael Smiths with different addresses, but not two with the same postcode), and I’d enforce proof of ID and proof of address checks to combat people putting granny’s address in for a second entry or doing entries both with and without middle names (or fake names entirely!). In the very unlikely event of two different people having the exact same name and postcode then the staff would have to get involved to “unfreeze” the registrations.

 

3. I think all bookings should HAVE to include the lead booker (whose registration is logged in). Instead of being able to book for any six people at all, it should always be yourself plus up to five others. One of the biggest ways that the current system overly benefits the big syndicates is that as soon as one of the sub-groups of 6 gets tickets, that entire group apart from the lead booker can switch up to looking for the next group in the same spreadsheet. If all bookings HAD to include the lead booker, then as soon as your mate has sorted you a ticket you might as well leave the queue.

 

Would be very interested to get everyone’s thoughts on this. I do think this system has a lot of potential to be better in the long run than a return to the F5 wars, the dreaded ballot system, or even a return to in person or over the telephone sales, but I think the few tweaks that I have suggested would make it generally fairer across the board.

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

Be able to enter your registration details before joining the queue, reduce the number that can be purchased from six to four and close any IT loopholes and that'll do it. But really I don't have many complaints about the new system, possibly apart from the final point but I don't have a deep enough IT knowledge to fully understand what the issues are/were

[MilkyJoe]

20 minutes ago, danz026 said:

Let me start by saying that there’s no perfect system and when demand FAR outweighs supply, there are always going to be a lot of disappointed people. I do agree with Emily that a balance has to be struck between giving everyone a somewhat fair chance, but those who really want to be there getting a better chance than the “I’ll just give it a try” applicants, so a proper ballot is out of the question.

 

I would slightly challenge the assumption that everyone who “really wants to be there” is able to figure out loopholes in the system. It’s particularly difficult for groups like my own who’ve never been before but had been specifically planning a “Glastonbury 2025” trip for years. We simply don’t have the numbers to form a big cartel, the tech knowledge to have hundreds of unique tabs on the go, or the contacts in the “Glastonbury club” to be in the know how to beat the system.

 

Contrary to popular belief, the new system is far less gameable by bots than the old one, so I would like to see a variation the new system retained. However, I would make the following changes:

 

1. Firstly, I would make it that you have to log in to the waiting room using your registration to even get into the queue. At the moment you could have several computers with hundreds of tabs each (using chrome profiles or Firefox containers) and you just wait and see which of them gets to the front first. It’s a pure numbers game. I make a back-of-the-envelope calculation that a single tab on a single device has a 2.8% chance of getting tickets across the coach and general sale. If you have 100 of them on the go then that jumps to 95% chance that at least one will be successful. 200 on the go means 99.7% chance. I would make it a single queue ID per registration to immediately solve this problem.

 

2. To combat multiple registrations, I would suggest that it should be a single registration per name and postcode (for example you could have two Michael Smiths with different addresses, but not two with the same postcode), and I’d enforce proof of ID and proof of address checks to combat people putting granny’s address in for a second entry or doing entries both with and without middle names (or fake names entirely!). In the very unlikely event of two different people having the exact same name and postcode then the staff would have to get involved to “unfreeze” the registrations.

 

3. I think all bookings should HAVE to include the lead booker (whose registration is logged in). Instead of being able to book for any six people at all, it should always be yourself plus up to five others. One of the biggest ways that the current system overly benefits the big syndicates is that as soon as one of the sub-groups of 6 gets tickets, that entire group apart from the lead booker can switch up to looking for the next group in the same spreadsheet. If all bookings HAD to include the lead booker, then as soon as your mate has sorted you a ticket you might as well leave the queue.

 

Would be very interested to get everyone’s thoughts on this. I do think this system has a lot of potential to be better in the long run than a return to the F5 wars, the dreaded ballot system, or even a return to in person or over the telephone sales, but I think the few tweaks that I have suggested would make it generally fairer across the board.

Not being funny but could you not have left this until after the resale!😂

 

A quick observation on point 1. Your chances don't go up that high. If you have 100 machines then each one still only has a 2.4% chance.

[MilkyJoe]

15 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

Be able to enter your registration details before joining the queue, reduce the number that can be purchased from six to four and close any IT loopholes and that'll do it. But really I don't have many complaints about the new system, possibly apart from the final point but I don't have a deep enough IT knowledge to fully understand what the issues are/were

Or just close the IT loopholes.

[danz026]

20 minutes ago, MilkyJoe said:

Not being funny but could you not have left this until after the resale!😂

 

A quick observation on point 1. Your chances don't go up that high. If you have 100 machines then each one still only has a 2.4% chance.

 

Correct, but when you’ve got that many machines on the go it’s incredibly likely that one will beat the system.

 

2.4% chance of success on a single machine is the same as a 97.6% chance of failure on a single machine. Stretch that to two machines and you need to do 97.6% ^ 2 which is around 95.3%. If you stretch it to 100 machines though, then 97.6% ^ 100 is around 8% (92% chance that at least one machine will succeed) and if you have 200 then it’s less than 1% (> 99% chance that one will succeed).

 

This will probably fall next time as this trick will become more popular and everyone will be running 200 machines.

[MilkyJoe]

Probably why I'm not a professional gambler...

[danmarks]

Not sure that maths stacks up. It's probability and bias. It was a long time ago but think I remember that probability is a,weird thing. 

Having two lottery tickets for example doesn't double your chances of winning.

Each one is still 1 in 50million or whatever- it seems it should follow that 2 would bring the odds down to 1 in 25millikn but it doesn't.

The rest of the points read well though.

And thinking about it having to input the lead bookers details would still allow 6 people 6 chances to try (each one could be a lead booker).

The limiting to 4 would have an impact on a mates family so for that reason I'm out.

Other places can get away with it though do maybe that is a reasonable adjustment

[danz026]

5 minutes ago, danmarks said:

Not sure that maths stacks up. It's probability and bias. It was a long time ago but think I remember that probability is a,weird thing. 

Having two lottery tickets for example doesn't double your chances of winning.

Each one is still 1 in 50million or whatever- it seems it should follow that 2 would bring the odds down to 1 in 25millikn but it doesn't.

The rest of the points read well though.

And thinking about it having to input the lead bookers details would still allow 6 people 6 chances to try (each one could be a lead booker).

The limiting to 4 would have an impact on a mates family so for that reason I'm out.

Other places can get away with it though do maybe that is a reasonable adjustment

I have a degree in probability theory, I’m telling you for a fact that having 100-200 devices each with around 2% probability of success gives you a huge chance of succeeding.

 

With lottery tickets it’s a bit different because the chance of a single one succeeding is absolutely tiny. Far less than 3%. You would need hundreds of thousands of tickets to have even a decent chance of winning the lottery (indeed, there was a TV game show years ago where the winner got to choose between a guaranteed £20k or 100,000 lottery tickets).

 

6 lead bookers is fine. I’m okay with groups having 6 chances to win but would prefer to get rid of the massive spreadsheets with dozens of groups.

[Mardy]

Quote

those who really want to be there getting a better chance than the “I’ll just give it a try” applicants

 

 

I don't really agree with this, I think. I know loads of people who went on a whim/a spur of the moment decision in the 90s who fell in love with the place and have become firm evangelical advocates for the place. It smacks of 'deserving' vs 'undeserving'. I think we can all recall things we did under the 'I'll just give it a try' category that became pivotal moments in our life.

[MilkyJoe]

12 minutes ago, danz026 said:

I have a degree in probability theory

 

 

You could have said this before I tried arguing with you!🤣

[Nobody Interesting]

1 hour ago, danz026 said:

Let me start by saying that there’s no perfect system and when demand FAR outweighs supply, there are always going to be a lot of disappointed people. I do agree with Emily that a balance has to be struck between giving everyone a somewhat fair chance, but those who really want to be there getting a better chance than the “I’ll just give it a try” applicants, so a proper ballot is out of the question.

 

I would slightly challenge the assumption that everyone who “really wants to be there” is able to figure out loopholes in the system. It’s particularly difficult for groups like my own who’ve never been before but had been specifically planning a “Glastonbury 2025” trip for years. We simply don’t have the numbers to form a big cartel, the tech knowledge to have hundreds of unique tabs on the go, or the contacts in the “Glastonbury club” to be in the know how to beat the system.

 

Contrary to popular belief, the new system is far less gameable by bots than the old one, so I would like to see a variation the new system retained. However, I would make the following changes:

 

1. Firstly, I would make it that you have to log in to the waiting room using your registration to even get into the queue. At the moment you could have several computers with hundreds of tabs each (using chrome profiles or Firefox containers) and you just wait and see which of them gets to the front first. It’s a pure numbers game. I make a back-of-the-envelope calculation that a single tab on a single device has a 2.8% chance of getting tickets across the coach and general sale. If you have 100 of them on the go then that jumps to 95% chance that at least one will be successful. 200 on the go means 99.7% chance. I would make it a single queue ID per registration to immediately solve this problem.

 

2. To combat multiple registrations, I would suggest that it should be a single registration per name and postcode (for example you could have two Michael Smiths with different addresses, but not two with the same postcode), and I’d enforce proof of ID and proof of address checks to combat people putting granny’s address in for a second entry or doing entries both with and without middle names (or fake names entirely!). In the very unlikely event of two different people having the exact same name and postcode then the staff would have to get involved to “unfreeze” the registrations.

 

3. I think all bookings should HAVE to include the lead booker (whose registration is logged in). Instead of being able to book for any six people at all, it should always be yourself plus up to five others. One of the biggest ways that the current system overly benefits the big syndicates is that as soon as one of the sub-groups of 6 gets tickets, that entire group apart from the lead booker can switch up to looking for the next group in the same spreadsheet. If all bookings HAD to include the lead booker, then as soon as your mate has sorted you a ticket you might as well leave the queue.

 

Would be very interested to get everyone’s thoughts on this. I do think this system has a lot of potential to be better in the long run than a return to the F5 wars, the dreaded ballot system, or even a return to in person or over the telephone sales, but I think the few tweaks that I have suggested would make it generally fairer across the board.

 

Logging in with reg number obviously helps but creating multiple registrations using different addresses is really easy I am afraid. Fake ID's are all too easy to get hold of.

[danmarks]

Wouldn't a,false address be logged when you went to pay though? Obviously that creates its own challenges of having 6 people ready with 450quid but a lot of sites (well definitely ticketmaster on some sales and some other random ticket sites ) insist on same address for booking and payment.

[gooner1990]

Another way (which I know wouldn't be popular) would be to get rid of the deposit system.

[gherkin8r]

Some wild mathematics in here. Having two lottery tickets doesn't double your chances of winning over one? Your chances with 100 machines isn't better than with 1? Jesus.

[hoopy67]

1 hour ago, danz026 said:

Let me start by saying that there’s no perfect system and when demand FAR outweighs supply, there are always going to be a lot of disappointed people. I do agree with Emily that a balance has to be struck between giving everyone a somewhat fair chance, but those who really want to be there getting a better chance than the “I’ll just give it a try” applicants, so a proper ballot is out of the question.

 

I would slightly challenge the assumption that everyone who “really wants to be there” is able to figure out loopholes in the system. It’s particularly difficult for groups like my own who’ve never been before but had been specifically planning a “Glastonbury 2025” trip for years. We simply don’t have the numbers to form a big cartel, the tech knowledge to have hundreds of unique tabs on the go, or the contacts in the “Glastonbury club” to be in the know how to beat the system.

 

Contrary to popular belief, the new system is far less gameable by bots than the old one, so I would like to see a variation the new system retained. However, I would make the following changes:

 

1. Firstly, I would make it that you have to log in to the waiting room using your registration to even get into the queue. At the moment you could have several computers with hundreds of tabs each (using chrome profiles or Firefox containers) and you just wait and see which of them gets to the front first. It’s a pure numbers game. I make a back-of-the-envelope calculation that a single tab on a single device has a 2.8% chance of getting tickets across the coach and general sale. If you have 100 of them on the go then that jumps to 95% chance that at least one will be successful. 200 on the go means 99.7% chance. I would make it a single queue ID per registration to immediately solve this problem.

 

2. To combat multiple registrations, I would suggest that it should be a single registration per name and postcode (for example you could have two Michael Smiths with different addresses, but not two with the same postcode), and I’d enforce proof of ID and proof of address checks to combat people putting granny’s address in for a second entry or doing entries both with and without middle names (or fake names entirely!). In the very unlikely event of two different people having the exact same name and postcode then the staff would have to get involved to “unfreeze” the registrations.

 

3. I think all bookings should HAVE to include the lead booker (whose registration is logged in). Instead of being able to book for any six people at all, it should always be yourself plus up to five others. One of the biggest ways that the current system overly benefits the big syndicates is that as soon as one of the sub-groups of 6 gets tickets, that entire group apart from the lead booker can switch up to looking for the next group in the same spreadsheet. If all bookings HAD to include the lead booker, then as soon as your mate has sorted you a ticket you might as well leave the queue.

 

Would be very interested to get everyone’s thoughts on this. I do think this system has a lot of potential to be better in the long run than a return to the F5 wars, the dreaded ballot system, or even a return to in person or over the telephone sales, but I think the few tweaks that I have suggested would make it generally fairer across the board.

 

Nice suggestions but here's my thoughts on each.

 

Point 1:

 

Wouldn't this cause a large amount of 'load' on their servers if everyone had to login prior to the sale? Someone tech savvy, please correct me if I am talking nonsense.

 

Regardless, it's another feature that they (the festival) would have to pay more money for so I can't see it happening.

 

Point 2:

 

Would never work. It would be an enormous amount of effort to check multiple people with the same name are distinct individuals. Why stop at people who share postcodes? I could register at my flat and my parents house, for example.

 

To compound this, they will not collect proof of identification, as again, it will cost them more money to do this. Would you trust them to keep this highly sensitive data safe?

 

Point 3:

 

This doesn't seem fair. What if there's an issue with the only credit/debit card you own? Your friend/partner/housemate wouldn't be able to help in this scenario.

[Skip997]

One small problem with this, the proof of address. I live in a van and can’t prove my address. Okay this may apply to a tiny number of people and doesn’t affect me. 
 

But proof of address in general does annoy me.

[gfa]

2 hours ago, danz026 said:

Let me start by saying that there’s no perfect system and when demand FAR outweighs supply, there are always going to be a lot of disappointed people. I do agree with Emily that a balance has to be struck between giving everyone a somewhat fair chance, but those who really want to be there getting a better chance than the “I’ll just give it a try” applicants, so a proper ballot is out of the question.

 

I would slightly challenge the assumption that everyone who “really wants to be there” is able to figure out loopholes in the system. It’s particularly difficult for groups like my own who’ve never been before but had been specifically planning a “Glastonbury 2025” trip for years. We simply don’t have the numbers to form a big cartel, the tech knowledge to have hundreds of unique tabs on the go, or the contacts in the “Glastonbury club” to be in the know how to beat the system.

 

Contrary to popular belief, the new system is far less gameable by bots than the old one, so I would like to see a variation the new system retained. However, I would make the following changes:

 

1. Firstly, I would make it that you have to log in to the waiting room using your registration to even get into the queue. At the moment you could have several computers with hundreds of tabs each (using chrome profiles or Firefox containers) and you just wait and see which of them gets to the front first. It’s a pure numbers game. I make a back-of-the-envelope calculation that a single tab on a single device has a 2.8% chance of getting tickets across the coach and general sale. If you have 100 of them on the go then that jumps to 95% chance that at least one will be successful. 200 on the go means 99.7% chance. I would make it a single queue ID per registration to immediately solve this problem.

 

2. To combat multiple registrations, I would suggest that it should be a single registration per name and postcode (for example you could have two Michael Smiths with different addresses, but not two with the same postcode), and I’d enforce proof of ID and proof of address checks to combat people putting granny’s address in for a second entry or doing entries both with and without middle names (or fake names entirely!). In the very unlikely event of two different people having the exact same name and postcode then the staff would have to get involved to “unfreeze” the registrations.

 

3. I think all bookings should HAVE to include the lead booker (whose registration is logged in). Instead of being able to book for any six people at all, it should always be yourself plus up to five others. One of the biggest ways that the current system overly benefits the big syndicates is that as soon as one of the sub-groups of 6 gets tickets, that entire group apart from the lead booker can switch up to looking for the next group in the same spreadsheet. If all bookings HAD to include the lead booker, then as soon as your mate has sorted you a ticket you might as well leave the queue.

 

Would be very interested to get everyone’s thoughts on this. I do think this system has a lot of potential to be better in the long run than a return to the F5 wars, the dreaded ballot system, or even a return to in person or over the telephone sales, but I think the few tweaks that I have suggested would make it generally fairer across the board.

Is it lol

 

Anyone who could bot the last one would not struggle to bot this one, all you needed to do was fire a load of browsers at it and not refresh vs the exact same but with refreshing last time 😂

 

--

 

Some of these ideas are decent but the registrations definitely could be worked around. I think what there is now is generally good enough with some fixes (e.g. not being able to do heaps of tabs on the same wifi).

 

The last point would just piss people off

[gorfield]

When I bought tickets for Coldplay at Wembley you had to log in to enter the queue and if you tried to open another tab it asked if you wanted to start a new session or continue with the one you had. This would help a lot.

 

I actually did only use one tab stupidly on Sunday as I believed the bot stuff... ah well.

Edited 20 minutes ago by gorfield

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, hoopy67 said:

 

Wouldn't this cause a large amount of 'load' on their servers if everyone had to login prior to the sale? Someone tech savvy, please correct me if I am talking nonsense.

 

This is indeed the tricky problem with the "log in with your registration number first" approach. I'm not sure how much the queue these days is there for being able to have a 30-45 minute sale process, and how much is genuinely because the system can't deal with everyone accessing it at once (which is certainly why we got holding pages in the first place).

 

If it's still more the latter then yeah, we'd have the same issue where you'd end up on a holding page the hour before, trying to get into the page where you could enter your reg number and have it checked.

 

(Maybe you could do something clever where it's just client-side, you enter the number before you join the queue but it isn't verified at that point. But then that reg number has to be the number of the lead booker when you make the purchase.)

[Paul ™]

24 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

One small problem with this, the proof of address. I live in a van and can’t prove my address. Okay this may apply to a tiny number of people and doesn’t affect me. 
 

But proof of address in general does annoy me.

Don't you have your address on any documents?

 

You obviously drive so you must at least have an address for DVLA for tax? Road Tax? Motor Insurance?

 

No bank account?

[Skip997]

2 minutes ago, Paul ™ said:

Don't you have your address on any documents?

 

You obviously drive so you must at least have an address for DVLA for tax? Road Tax? Motor Insurance?

 

No bank account?

Yeah of course 

 

So maybe I can 

[balti-pie]

I was having a think about this the other day - if registrations were linked to, say, a passport number, so that each person could only have one number, and not game the system by appearing in loads of groups; on the face of it that seems a good idea. 

but not everyone has a passport, and theyre about £120 for an British one (Irish ones are cheaper btw, and notably more sexy! come aboard!) so you're then upping the price of even applying for a ticket well beyond what some people can spare. Its not easy, every solution has a few more issues, its a pain in the arse making it 'fair' 

[fraybentos1]

3 minutes ago, balti-pie said:

I was having a think about this the other day - if registrations were linked to, say, a passport number, so that each person could only have one number, and not game the system by appearing in loads of groups; on the face of it that seems a good idea. 

but not everyone has a passport, and theyre about £120 for an British one (Irish ones are cheaper btw, and notably more sexy! come aboard!) so you're then upping the price of even applying for a ticket well beyond what some people can spare. Its not easy, every solution has a few more issues, its a pain in the arse making it 'fair' 

no way they're doing this. The photo ID already makes it the strictest of any festival.

 

You also can't discount that the festival wants there to be insane demand and they'd be mad to stifle that. They are a business after all

[fullfathom5]

1 hour ago, gooner1990 said:

Another way (which I know wouldn't be popular) would be to get rid of the deposit system.

yep - thought this for a long time