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Memories of T-Day in 2004


budvar
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I remember spending 10 hours in the computer room at uni for the 2004 sale, every time I got on the booking page it crashed, the only confirmation I managed to get was that I had purchased a car parking pass. Ended up going home defeated at 6am thinking I hadn't got tickets. I was trying with a mate and back then we only had solo cards and you could only book tickets with a debit card so we asked my mate's brother if we could use his debit card - my mates brother lived overseas after dropping out of uni and had a student account that he had opened but never used.

After going home for the summer, three days before the festival my mate calls me to say that his brother went to close his student account and found he was overdrawn by £900 - turns out we'd actually bought 8 tickets.... Probably the happiest day of my life. Refunded 6 of them, kept 2 and I've been back pretty much every year since.

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4 hours ago, Troop Dogg said:

I got my 2004 tickets something like 2 weeks later. They must've had too many people making double purchases by accident or something, as they suddenly, and very quietly, went back onsale. I just so happened to log on to the site and they were back on sale. Filled my boots!

Exactly the way I got my tickets.

I'd tried for hours, given up, started trying again, gave up in the early hours and restarted again in the morning before work. Tried occasionally from work until I found out they were gone. Although I wanted to go I wasn't trying too hard, as it was the first time I'd actually paid for proper tickets. It didn't seem right really. :)

I was on the old NME forums and saw a post that tickets were on sale again, and snagged a pair. They seemed to be dribbling them out, as there were quite a few similar posts at various times. Turned out my mate had already booked a holiday for that week, and I couldn't find another mate that wanted to go without their spouse so I ended up selling the pair.

I think it was also the year that they tried insisting on some form of ID as an anti tout measure although they were accepting a bank statement, so I'm not sure how effective that would have been.

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Having easily got tickets before 2004 ( every year 95-2003 ) without any problem I wasn't prepared for the nightmare of 2004! I was at a friends house at 8pm and thought I could just use her pc ( dial up) to book in a few minutes- failed to get online so tried to phone but no luck. thought no worries I'll ring when I get home later- ended up sat in bed with laptop on dial up and telephone trying to get through- falling asleep, waking up and trying again through the night! 

Had to go to work next day so tried a few times later but no luck. I even missed the re-sale ( they really were were secret in those days) So 2004 was a failure- the only one since 1995! Ironically 2008 was a year I could have got tickets but was in Australia at a family wedding so didn't go. 

I miss the time you could just write in for tickets to Glastonbury festival enclosing a postal order ( 1986) or of course the first time (1984) by sneaking in for free on the Sunday! 

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Yes I remember 2004 well.  I'd gone for the 1st time in 2003 when I got tickets the day after they went on sale and didn't have to wait long on phone.  So there was a group of 7 of us wanting to go in 2004. I remember my girlfriend (now wife) coming to my place and her trying on the phone and me on my pc but getting nowhere and then checking efestivals and using the international number at around 11ish. My mate who was the 1 of the 7 (i.e. not in a couple) got sorted that evening too but not the other 4 that night.  I remember going into work the next morning and trying online (I think through a link from efestivals) and getting through for my 4 ticketless friends- including one very zombie like one who had been up all night trying.

I do recall that the tickets were still being touted as we were speaking to some people at the radio 1 stage that had paid over the odds on eBay 

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9 hours ago, Mandroman said:

Was 2004 the year of the Freya link? If so I eventually got through from my office pc the next morning using that. Up til then it had been a turgid death by dial up til the early hours with a further attempt at home at 6am ish when I woke up worried I'd missed it all. It was an adventure* that's for sure. 

Yep

9 hours ago, Mandroman said:

 

 

 

 

 

* one of those 16k Spectrum ones without graphics where you get stuck in the reeds one move from the start. 

Yep, that was it. Tried for hours that night to get through online, gave up then the next morning a mate emailed me a link that he got off a football forum somehow! I put that in and got in straight away. Did it twice and got four tickets. Amazing really. That was my first and not missed one since.  

I haven't got tickets yet this year, but that year was really really stressful in getting them. Still, I'd take that again if it meant getting tickets for next year. 

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7 hours ago, 5co77ie said:

Is it just me or is it taking slightly longer after it 'peaked' in 2015 (on sale October 14):

 

2017 - on sale October, sold out 50 minutes.
2016 - on sale October, sold out 33 minutes.
2015 - on sale October, sold out 26 minutes.
2014 - on sale October, sold out 1 hour and 27 minutes.
2013 - on sale October, sold out 1 hour and 40 minutes.
2012 - Fallow year.
2011 - on sale October, sold out 4 hours (1.15pm).
2010 - on sale October, sold out 12 hours.
2009 - on sale October, sold out February.
2008 - on sale April, sold out a day before the Festival started.
2007 - First year of registration system (implemented to cut out touting) on sale April, sold out 2 hours.
2006 - Fallow year.
2005 - on sale April, sold out 1 hour and 45 minutes (touts and scalpers blamed with thousands then put up for sale on eBay).
2004 - on sale April, sold out 24 hours.
2003 - on sale April, sold out 26 hours.
2002 - on sale April, sold out after 25 days, which was the first time it sold out 2 months in advance, and the first year of the super fence.

2009 festival, the website said 'sold out' but mates of mine bought tickets freely as late as the end of May that year...i.e if  you entered your details it allowed you to purchase a ticket despite the front page saying 'Sold out'

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22 minutes ago, General Lee said:

Just remembering, did it redirect to a web address with 'wayaheadsecure' in it or is that what it does now? I forget as it's been a while since I've managed to see the payment page! :D

Yes, it probably would have.

Way Ahead was the original name for seetickets - and going back further Way Ahead Tickets grew out of Way Ahead Records, an independent record store in Nottingham that closed about 15 years ago when their ticket business had basically completely eclipsed the actual record store thanks largely to being one of the first to sell online.

Can't remember what year they first introduced the seetickets brand, but I remember that it took them ages ( at least a couple years) to fully get rid of the way ahead name on some of the servers and security certificates.

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Having had many friends go from 1999 onwards I finally decided I wanted to go in 2003.

However completly unprepared we were on our way to see England v Turkey in Sunderland and when we arrived we were in a shop getting some food and heard on the radio that Glastonbury had sold out inside 24 hours which was unheard of at the time.

Never invesgiated further (annoying given the great weather and line up that year) and waited for 2004.

Finally  April 2004 rolled round and we  had 6 of us wanting tickets, all of us at uni at the time chatting on MSN messenger ready for the 8pm thurs on sale time...one by one people gave up and I luckily had the friday off from lectures and kept going, eventually some kind soul posted on here the freya link and i got through and booked my ticket, then managed to get hold of one of my mates who answered his phone at 6am and got two for him. (had to pay the balance in full and like someone else said it was two tickets max per transaction)

So we had three of us going to the festival, luckily a week or two later i was browsinig these forums and someone posted that tickets were on sale again rang the other three friends and thankfully they all got tickets as well. 

 

Never looked back, and two of us who went that year still go every year together and will be in attendance in 2017. :) 

 

Can't believe that its 12 1/2 years ago!!!

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I remember it well. It was my third year. In 2002 I had wandered up to StarGreen box office just off Regent St in London to buy tickets a few weeks after they went on sale.

2003 I bought them online. Yes it sold out in 24 hrs, but then no-one knew that would happen so there was no great rush. I think they went on sale at 9am, I logged on at around lunchtime and purchased them straightaway with no fuss.

2004 was awful. I stayed at work to get them online as my home internet connection was not great. Then followed hours of clicking back and refresh repeatedly. I eventually had to leave the office to get the last train home at 11.30ish. Tried again for a few hours online when I got home. Nothing. Went to bed about 3, up again at about 5.30 and then somehow suddenly managed to get 2 for me and my girlfriend. Kept trying for my 2 mates but no luck. Got the train back to work, arriving about 9.30am and did not work all morning, continuing to try for my mates. Later that morning I found a back-door link posted on an online forum (probably here), and finally managed to get my mates' tickets mid-late morning.

While I would never want a repeat of that year, I do agree to some extent that slowing down sales so as to have a longer period to sell out generally rewards persistence, and so is in that sense fairer. What is the optimum time though? Maybe somewhere around the 6hr mark.

Edited by BadgerMatt
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12 hours ago, Cheesey said:

Yes, that part is talking about the touting, but it also said:

And it seems clear to me that the move to a single ticket seller was a new move for that year (2004), but maybe I'm biased in the way I'm reading it:

 

the 'control' was about Glasto's ability to monitor if individuals were buying up a load of tickets to then tout them. I'm pretty sure the only outlets they supplied that allowed that to happen was via the smallish number of tickets that went thru shops. I'm pretty sure that all of the online tickets were from just one place.

 

 

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55 minutes ago, BadgerMatt said:

2003 I bought them online. Yes it sold out in 24 hrs, but then no-one knew that would happen so there was no great rush.

I'm pretty damned sure there was a rush for tickets in 2003, caused by the fact that everyone now knew there was no chance of getting over the fence.

It was because so many people thought "they won't stop me getting over the fence" in 2002 that the tickets sold slowly that year.

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22 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

I'm pretty damned sure there was a rush for tickets in 2003, caused by the fact that everyone now knew there was no chance of getting over the fence.

It was because so many people thought "they won't stop me getting over the fence" in 2002 that the tickets sold slowly that year.

Well maybe you are right, but if so I was not aware of it. I was very lucky that I decided to buy tickets on the day that they went on sale. I knew I wanted to go but didn't know I would need to get them that day. I guess what I mean is no-one expected they would sell out so quickly so you didn't have everyone logging on at 9am hammering F5 which is why, although they sold out almost as quickly as the following year the transaction process was very smooth. The demand was spaced out over that 24 hrs and so everyone only had to try once.

But I agree there was a much increased demand for tickets that year caused by the fact that it was the first year people knew they couldn't hop over the fence any more.

Edited by BadgerMatt
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2004 was my first Glasto! International ticket number came up trumps for us. I can still remember queuing outside a place in Shepton Mallet (possibly the local library or community centre) with my passport to collect the ticket, then driving to the site blasting out the BBC Radio One track of the week (I Love You 'Cause I Have To' by one - Dogs Die In Hot Cars) in ecstasy! 

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18 hours ago, little_jim said:

2004 was my first year. I managed to get tickets quite by accident. I managed to avoid all the chaos aloud.com caused. I must of been lucky and got a few tickets in a second batch that were released on line. Logged on just to have a look and they were still on sale, gave my mate a bell and scribbled down his details as we still needed name and address on the ticket. It took a few calls for him to pick up and a lot of persuasion from me how good it will be.

Never really intended on going but Oasis (I was hugely let down by their naff set) and Sir Paul were heading not sure if I would see both of them on the same bill again. Picked up the courage to go all that way and had the best time of my life. (Id only been V-Festival before being a young fresh faced 18 year old and that only being all of 20 minutes down the road).

 

Booked up the tickets, got the coach from Victoria and never looked back.

Very similar festival apprenticeship as myself; V Festival for a few years followed by graduation to Glastonbury. While many take the mick out of V it was a perfect stepping stone and the lineups back then were actually pretty decent.

Within 5 minutes of getting on site in 2004 I realised Glasto was an entirely different beast altogether.

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I remember buying my first ticket for Glasto in April 1999 and they had been on sale quite a bit.

The old internet was pretty slow then and that night it was really slow as the web was full of the fact that someone had shot Jill Dando.

 

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2004 - remember I got ours at about 2am over the phone. I then stayed up until about 4 trying for another mate. I gave up and went to bed. Then went to work for 9am, tried to get them all day long at my desk, and got them for him at 5.30pm! That was almost 24 hours of solid trying!!! 

Was worth it though. Not quite as good as 2003, but probably in my top 3 Glastonburys out of 10. 

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I think this might be a fairly unpopular story:

 

I was only really passively interested in going in 2004 and had completely forgotten about it by sale day. That was until halfway through my shift at a Wetherspoons and a mate of a mate came in and said he had a mate working at the ticket call centre and we could ring his mobile and he'd put them through. The whole thing took about 5 minutes. 

 

My tent flooded on night one if that helps

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I was at the Albert Hall watching Jools Holland and friend started the proceedings off, i think it was something like 8 that evening.I ran back through London,catching tubes and took over as soon as i got back.......19 hours it took and ended up with 4 sets of tickets. 2004 was my first year.

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3 hours ago, COPG said:

I think this might be a fairly unpopular story:

 

I was only really passively interested in going in 2004 and had completely forgotten about it by sale day. That was until halfway through my shift at a Wetherspoons and a mate of a mate came in and said he had a mate working at the ticket call centre and we could ring his mobile and he'd put them through. The whole thing took about 5 minutes. 

 

My tent flooded on night one if that helps

I can see why you waited 12 years to share that one...

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10 hours ago, milly16 said:

I was at the Albert Hall watching Jools Holland and friend started the proceedings off, i think it was something like 8 that evening.I ran back through London,catching tubes and took over as soon as i got back.......19 hours it took and ended up with 4 sets of tickets. 2004 was my first year.

I have nightmares that Glastonbury give Jools Holland a 5 hour set.

His contract states 5 songs and after 90 mins he is still tinkling away on the Joanna on his first blues / jazz fusion jam .

 

 

 

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