How I would fix the ticket system

[Skip997]

2 minutes ago, Nice hymer said:

The festival's already full of rich people.

Head up to the camper fields to see the rows of £50k Transporters, the £50k motorhomes / car & caravan combos, all those hire vans at £2-3,000 per week. The number of people buying £100 rounds, the people sniffing coke like it's flour, all of the glamping options....

 

We need to accept what the festival is, rather than what we want it to be.

Surprisingly I no longer have a problem with rich people attending as long as they’re “party people”

[gfa]

24 minutes ago, Nice hymer said:

GFL appear to want a global brand and to be able to give large sums of money to charity.

Regardless of what we think, they're running the show and can easily justify the decisions they make.

 

If they want to take this path, I think they should introduce something similar to dynamic pricing, with people choosing which 'queue' to be in.

 

Say 50% of tickets sold at face value.

25% of tickets available at 25% premium (£475ish)

10% of tickets available at 50% premium (£550ish)

5% of tickets available at 75% premium (£650ish)

5% of tickets available at double the price (£750ish)

2.5% of tickets available at triple price (£1,100ish)

2.5% of tickets to the highest bidders.

 

Perhaps proportions/costs could be tweaked, but you get the drift.

More money for the festival to spend, option to cut capacity if they wanted.

Charities get more money.

 

Being realistic, those with money are already paying a premium to gain entry and those without money are mostly excluded.

 

I don't think a system like this would dramatically alter the make up of the audience or vibe.

There's enough going already who would happily pay more, just as well exploit the festival's potential to the maximum (it's giving to charity after all).

 

I'm not suggesting VIP tickets, exclusive facilities, privileges and all that nonsense. A ticket remains a ticket and people are just buying admission, same as ever.

 

The festival could very much justify their actions, as ultimately charities get more money...

The festival already has hospitality tickets

 

This also sets off a spiral of price increases.

 

No artist will do the festival for cheap if people are paying a grand for tickets lol

[gfa]

5 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

That thought has crossed my mind before, or maybe even a separate charge that includes SE corner entrance. It’s become IMO a bit of a problem area. The one way system barely functions and we’re having to amend it every year, there were even times this year they were holding people at the Block 9 entrance opposite Unfairground. Shangri-La has become an almost unmanageable bottleneck with 1000’s just aimlessly wondering around 

They don't seem interested in sorting it out properly - which is a full reconfiguration.

Silver Hayes has helped but its clearly not enough

 

edit: not to mention ridiculous bookings like bicep

Edited 2 hours ago by gfa

[stuie]

 

Just now, gfa said:

They don't seem interested in sorting it out properly - which is a full reconfiguration.

Silver Hayes has helped but its clearly not enough

 

edit: not to mention ridiculous bookings like bicep

 

yes, please stop booking big artists. it was really bad good. 

[DeanoL]

2 hours ago, UncleJunior said:

People want the deposit scheme removed because they think it'd make it easier for them to get tickets, failing to answer why Glastonbury would actively want to reduce demand for their business.

It's a stupid idea that makes it more difficult for those on low incomes.

It'd make it more difficult for those who struggle with budgeting and saving. Not those on low incomes. There's plenty of people who earn a very good wage and spend it all as soon as they get it, along with plenty on low incomes who are good at saving and put away for holidays etc. on a regular basis.

 

That's not a reason to scrap the deposit, I support making it accessible to people who struggle with budgeting. That's a good thing! I just don't think it helps to dress it up as an low income / discriminatory thing.

[hoopy67]

16 minutes ago, gfa said:

They don't seem interested in sorting it out properly - which is a full reconfiguration.

Silver Hayes has helped but its clearly not enough

 

edit: not to mention ridiculous bookings like bicep

 

The positioning/location of the truth stage really exacerbates a lot of the overcrowding issues in Shangri-La. I am surprised that they haven't changed something about this.

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, assorted said:

This is my biggest reason I may even stop trying to go with a ballot. I firmly believe a lot of the joy and magic of Glastonbury comes from very large groups of friends getting together and celebrating together and the energy that comes from that. For that reason I think the back button bug isn’t really a bug at all, but a nice way to make sure giant groups can stay together for the overall spirit of a festival. (Though like much of the magic of the festival I feel it comes from a kinda good vibe fortuitous incompetence more than intent). A festival of disconnected groups of 2 or 4 that won in a ballot would be a serious vibe shift in a direction I’d find sad.

And as someone who goes with a smaller group, large groups are the absolute worst. I think the spirit would be vastly improved if there were fewer of them.

 

1 hour ago, stuie said:

 

To be honest, I think the idea of it being a massive bucket list activity talked up by the BBC is a load of nonsense. 

 

The vast majority of people don't just land at Glasto having not done gigs or festivals or BST etc. 

 

Most people you meet have been before and/or have an interest in festivals generally. 

I think you're partly right but it's in the context of gigs and festivals as a whole having become massively more attended. Twenty years ago far fewer people went to gigs. These days I find most people go to one or two a year. Even if generally it's a Taylor/Coldplay/Oasis type of show. Bigger/stadium shows are much more common too. 

[Splodge]

It’s certainly possible to have a fairer system, but do we really want a fairer system?

 

It would likely mean people in this forum would potentially miss out on a decade of festivals rather than the odd year here and there. Is that really what we all want?

 

Close any exploits that people can make money from, get rid of any gamebreaking bugs like the “rejected queue number” one, fine tune the queue-it/akamai settings to avoid multiple sessions on such a vast scale, and call it good.

 

There is a little bit of be careful what you wish for in all this.

Edited 1 hour ago by Splodge

[hoopy67]

24 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

That thought has crossed my mind before, or maybe even a separate charge that includes SE corner entrance. It’s become IMO a bit of a problem area. The one way system barely functions and we’re having to amend it every year, there were even times this year they were holding people at the Block 9 entrance opposite Unfairground. Shangri-La has become an almost unmanageable bottleneck with 1000’s just aimlessly wondering around 

 

Adding a surcharge to visit the SE Corner is a bonkers suggestion.

 

Would be a logistical nightmare. Imagine the amount of people off their face that would be confused and causing issues if they didn't know about the surcharge/pay it. Would be impossible to implement in practice.

[Splodge]

14 minutes ago, hoopy67 said:

 

Adding a surcharge to visit the SE Corner is a bonkers suggestion.

 

Would be a logistical nightmare. Imagine the amount of people off their face that would be confused and causing issues if they didn't know about the surcharge/pay it. Would be impossible to implement in practice.

It’s pretty simple really. You could all be put in a holding pen on the railway line at 8pm, then at 9pm you are randomly allocated a general idea of where you are in the queue by stewards. You should then have to arrange yourself in a queue based on that information in the hope that you’re near enough to the front to be allowed to pay the surcharge to get in.
 

Oh, and you can clone yourself.

Edited 1 hour ago by Splodge

[Skip997]

12 minutes ago, hoopy67 said:

 

Adding a surcharge to visit the SE Corner is a bonkers suggestion.

 

Would be a logistical nightmare. Imagine the amount of people off their face that would be confused and causing issues if they didn't know about the surcharge/pay it. Would be impossible to implement in practice.

Yeah ultimately you’re right and it would be against the ethos of the festival. However it’s a real problem area, yet again caused by the hype. “Oh let’s go visit the ‘naughty corner’”

 

Yeah fair enough, but don’t just visit the ‘naughty corner’ and clog the place up aimlessly wondering around, get involved in it, find a venue get absorbed and dance.

 

The naughty corner is a myth that probably died with Lost Vagueness. The only naughty thing that happens there these days is people taking loads of drugs. No different to: Silver Hayes, Arcadia, The Glade and the fringe venues in the Park.

 

If you want to have a look do it before midnight, the artwork will look the same 

[MilkyJoe]

28 minutes ago, Splodge said:

It’s pretty simple really. You could all be put in a holding pen on the railway line at 8pm, then at 9pm you are randomly allocated a general idea of where you are in the queue by stewards. You should then have to arrange yourself in a queue based on that information in the hope that you’re near enough to the front to be allowed to pay the surcharge to get in.
 

Oh, and you can clone yourself.

Wait, can I buy a better position off somebody nearer the front?

[Toilet Duck]

Maybe it's just the new system, but this year's "I didn't get a ticket and the whole thing is unfair and needs to change" discussion has gone a bit bonkers compared to previous years! (yet again, to stress, I didn't get a ticket). It's now almost even veered into "how can we make the festival so unappealing that nobody contemplates coming and that'll make it easier for me to get in" (which is madness). Dynamic pricing, making everyone pay upfront, surcharges for different bits of the festival, all sorts of nonsense. Deposit system is fine, price is already expensive, why make it even harder for people to afford?. There's just more people that want to go than there are tickets. Simple as. And I presume the festival wants to keep it like that.

 

As @stuie suggested, from the festival's perspective and from See's, this year's sale went pretty smoothly. Registrations were introduced by the festival to stamp out reselling (which worked by and large, certainly no massive market for it, small numbers may want to gamble on someone else's ticket, but not going to pay stoopid money to chance it) and the queue prevented See's servers from collapsing (as they have done in previous sales) so the whole thing was done and dusted in under 40 minutes without a hitch. Even if bots can game the system and get to the front of the queue, there's no resale market due to the fact the tickets are non-transferrable, so I don't realistically see the big touts putting in the same effort for this when they can flog a million Coldplay tickets at vastly increased prices instead and make a ton more money (don't even believe that selling links was widespread anyway, haven't seen much evidence of it, but perhaps there was). Ultimately, all tickets went to people that were registered to attend the festival, so the festival is happy.