tickets and how it could be done better

[UEF]

if you never get through to the sales page, how quickly they sell out is utterly immaterial.

They could take 5 days to sell out but if system is still clogged up with people who have bought tickets but don't get off the system you won't get near the sales page.

with 1 million registered and only 118000 tickets on Tday you are more likely to not get tickets anyway but your odds are zero if you can't get on the sales page. 

your odds are zero if you don't try at all. Your odds increase the more often you try. Many, many people simply don't try hard enough, and that's why I've been going for 10 years.

[stuartbert two hats]

your odds are zero if you don't try at all. Your odds increase the more often you try. Many, many people simply don't try hard enough, and that's why I've been going for 10 years.

Just you wait.  You'll fail one year.  I've been 11 times and last year was the first time I failed* to get tickets.

* I didn't try very hard, which kinda of proves your point. Err...But I did try in the resales and the main sale and got nada.

[parsonjack]

your odds are zero if you don't try at all. Your odds increase the more often you try. Many, many people simply don't try hard enough, and that's why I've been going for 10 years.

Agree entirely with this.....luck plays a great part but you can certainly lower your chances by not trying hard enough.  I have zero sympathy for those that try for 5 minutes then get on Facebook or Twitter to bang off about how shit See are.....

 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

if you never get through to the sales page, how quickly they sell out is utterly immaterial.

They could take 5 days to sell out but if system is still clogged up with people who have bought tickets but don't get off the system you won't get near the sales page.

with 1 million registered and only 118000 tickets on Tday you are more likely to not get tickets anyway but your odds are zero if you can't get on the sales page. 

This isn't true though, if the sale lasted 5 days eventually persistent people would be rewarded. People soon get bored and start flagging, pressing F5 much less often etc in 30 minutes let alone 5 days. Allowing people to buy groups of up to 50 tickets would drastically shorten the sale length, what if you get the white screen? By the time you clear your cookies and fire up another browser the sale is over. I'd fancy my chances with loads of groups trying over 30 minutes vs everyone in and out in 5 or 10 all day long.

[UEF]

Yeah I don't miss the old ones that took hours of website crashes to sell out - or in the case of 2004, days. It's just long enough now. 

[DeanoL]

odds are zero if you can't get on the sales page. 

That's not how odds work. Everytime you hit refresh you have odds of 1 in 500 or so of getting through. Yes, if fewer people were trying, those odds would improve. But the chance of you getting a ticket is the compound probability of a single success for each time you hit refresh.

If the odds of getting to the sales page are 1 in 100 and the tickets sell out in 5 minutes, you have the exact same chance of a ticket as if the odds of getting to the sales page are 1 in 500 and it takes 25 minutes. Just how the maths works.

[Smeble]

Getting through to the sales page is everything, no sales page no tickets.

you can't get through to the sales page because more people are trying to get there than the page can handle

anything that reduces the number will help, people who have tickets clearing out of the system is the best way of doing this, increasing the amount of tickets one person can buy will do this.

 

[The_Amazing_Oblong]

I think the current system is pretty good as is. I don't think allowing 'regulars' easier access would be a good idea (even though this will be my 12th or 13th I think).

If a national ID or similar came about that could uniquely identify individuals then I would suggest a token system. You get a token against your reg for failing in the main sale, accumulate 3 tokens and your guaranteed a ticket. If you get a ticket your tokens are wiped.

Not sure how practical that would be as I haven't really thought it through much but would prevent unlucky people being unsuccessful year after year.

[DeanoL]

Getting through to the sales page is everything, no sales page no tickets.

Right. But getting through after the tickets have sold out also means no tickets. Larger groups mean tickets sell out more quickly. You'll increase your chance of getting through to the sales page for any given try, but you'll reduce the number of tries you get to make as the sale time falls.

Imagine there are 100 balls in a bag. 99 yellow, 1 red. You have ten seconds to pull out the balls, one at a time, to try and get the red one. I could take out 50 yellow balls, doubling your chances of getting the red one. But if I then tell you only have five seconds instead, you're no better off.

[incident]

So, my proposal:

Scrap the current Coach System. It's not in any way user friendly, and in most respects punishes people who are taking the environmentally friendly option - Even with the Car Park price increases it costs far more than going in a shared Car, and every year there's reports of people getting allocated a 5am Coach who have no way of getting to the departure point that early in the morning.

Put 45,000 tickets in the Coach Ticket pool. 90,000 in the Main Sale. Yes, that's a huge increase on Coach Tickets. Deliberately so. And if demand & logistics allows - go even further in future years.

Offer this out to any Coach Provider that wants to be included - National Express, or Big Green Coach, or Local Independents, or even See. Basically, the Coach Provider would be required to work with the following guidelines -

People buy tickets as normal in the "Coach Sale". However instead of choosing a day, or a departure point or paying for their Coach journey up front, each ticket holder instead gets E-Mailed a voucher for £10 off a return coach trip to Glastonbury, valid on participating operators. In the E-Mail, make it clear that the voucher must be redeemed in order to pay off your balance in April. No Coach Travel booked, then no way of confirming your ticket.

The various Coach Providers can then offer travel on a commercial & competitive basis. Much as National Express do now, although expanded to include as many operators as want to be involved. As long as they're prepared to honour the voucher, and their systems can inform GFL that it's been redeemed and on which service, then great, it's more choice for the people going to the Festival.

GFL can have a small team of stewards meeting each service to check/hand out tickets etc while the coach disembarks & luggage is sorted out - it shouldn't need much extra resources (and probably significantly less than you've saved in Car Park field rental/staffing).

 

You'd have some significant advantages - people having far complete choice over Departure Points, Days, and Times so we'll no longer hear about people getting a train from Bristol to Glasgow just in order to get on a coach back to the South West. Because they don't need to make a final decision on travel plans until April, it should massively reduce issues with circumstances changing. Because of the scale involved, you'd end up with far more options than National Express and See currently provide. And because the system would be a far more viable, even desirable option for many people, you should have less people trying to find ways round it. So you could actually enforce the T&C properly rather than what currently happens.

The only disadvantage I can see is that you'd need to significantly expand the Coach Station - but that would be more than offset by a decrease in Car Parking.

Leave the main sale largely untouched - provide nicer error messages if possible, etc but I think a bit of effort increasing chances isn't a bad thing. The only change - I'm putting a 5 quid "non coach ticket" tax on each ticket to pay for the 10 quid vouchers that have been just sent out.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

The Festival are in the business of selling tickets though, its great they have the coach sale for a portion of the tickets but if you extend it too far then it will people will lose interest if they are forced to go on a coach if they want to get a ticket. There is absolutely no benefit to the festival in making it harder/more difficult/less desirable to get a ticket.

[stutheblue]

My son got some of the Harry Potter tickets. He was in a queue for two hours. He was told exactly how many people were in front of him at any one time and this was reducing gradually. Don't know the full logistics of it but seemed a better way as long as the safari thing was sorted. He was happy to wait, didnt need to F5. Bit like queueing outside a venue without the cold and rain.

 

My record was sleeping outside Maine Road all night in a sleeping bag to see the Magic Tour 1986 by Queen. Worth every minute!!

[UEF]

 

 

My record was sleeping outside Maine Road all night in a sleeping bag to see the Magic Tour 1986 by Queen. Worth every minute!!

thank god you did eh...

[stuartbert two hats]

The Festival are in the business of selling tickets though, its great they have the coach sale for a portion of the tickets but if you extend it too far then it will people will lose interest if they are forced to go on a coach if they want to get a ticket. There is absolutely no benefit to the festival in making it harder/more difficult/less desirable to get a ticket.

Reducing the congestion around the festival site benefits the festival.  Also, I'm guessing that the festival gets a small commission from the tickets sold in the main sale, that would benefit the festival.  Reducing the amount of luggage brought on-site would reduce the clean up cost.  That benefits the festival.

And that's without the possibility that festival organisers actually care about their carbon footprint.  Usually thinking this might factor in would be pretty naive, but this is the organisation that gives millions away to charity every year, so they might actually care about the bigger picture.

Edited October 30, 2015 by stuartbert two hats

[Untz]

The Festival are in the business of selling tickets though, its great they have the coach sale for a portion of the tickets but if you extend it too far then it will people will lose interest if they are forced to go on a coach if they want to get a ticket. There is absolutely no benefit to the festival in making it harder/more difficult/less desirable to get a ticket.

I think a large part of making the ticket system "fairer", at least to people on here, is thinking of ways that would dissuade the casual, half-hearted attendee from buying tickets so those who genuinely care and want to go can get tickets instead. Hence why some people favour longer ticket selling times. There are various reasons why more people coming by coach would benefit the festival too.

I agree that coach/public transport tickets could be improved. I always go for normal tickets, but always travel by (NE) coach, which seems a little silly but I do so due to the earlier departure and cheaper ticket. I don't really see the system changing though.

[DeanoL]

The issue with expanding coaches that much is that there are only so many available coaches in the country. NX already sub-contract out to a huge number of different companies, as do See, obviously. That said, it might be workable if you also included people taking the shuttle buses.

[5co77ie]

it's simple you don't need to change the ticket buying system just get rid of the twats who go.

Keep registrations but make them tied to retinal scans, use that eyeball recognition technology or whatever it was they have at Download now to identify anyone dropping litter, leaving anything behind, and give them a lifetime ban.

That'd soon have the numbers registered down to manageable levels.

[Pear_Cider]

it's simple you don't need to change the ticket buying system just get rid of the twats who go.

Keep registrations but make them tied to retinal scans, use that eyeball recognition technology or whatever it was they have at Download now to identify anyone dropping litter, leaving anything behind, and give them a lifetime ban.

That'd soon have the numbers registered down to manageable levels.

Yep, I'm in favour of this

[5co77ie]

actually maybe lifetime is a bit harsh, that should be for anyone dropping glass, perhaps a five year ban would be sufficient

[Alan_C]

It's not ideal, but I don't see any ideal way of doing it. There is no way everyone who wants to go can. I missed out this year, but I've been successful 3 out of the last 5 festivals. People just have to accept that there are other people who want to go just as much as them.

[The other Bellboy]

I think it was somewhere further back in this topic that payment plans were discussed. Latitude and Kendal Calling have both today detailed some flexible payment schemes, both in terms of installments and ticket types.

Details are on the efestivals home / news page if anyone is interested

[TomViolence]

Does anyone know why registration has shut until mid-November?

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

actually maybe lifetime is a bit harsh, that should be for anyone dropping glass, perhaps a five year ban would be sufficient

Never mind the dropping bit, they shouldn't even have glass on them in the first place. Now you've got me at it - ranting that is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaYHRx9-v2M

[rivalschools.price]

What about making the deposit non refundable?

surely it's not unreasonable to lose your deposit if you decide not to go, people may think twice about trying for a ticket if they stand to lose their whole deposit rather than the admin fee.

[Smeble]

What about making the deposit non refundable?

surely it's not unreasonable to lose your deposit if you decide not to go, people may think twice about trying for a ticket if they stand to lose their whole deposit rather than the admin fee.

this has occurred to me, most deposits are non refundable.

however by having the sale in October of the previous year combined with how quickly they sell, GFL are forcing people to buy tickets for an event they have no idea if they can actually go to. Also when you buy tickets you have no idea who is playing so having a refundable deposit is an act of good faith on their part, aided in no small way by the fact they know they will sell all the refunded tickets.

im sure once demand drops the refundable deposit will disappear.