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Memories of T-Day in 2004


budvar
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Each year ticket day brings back memories of my first experience getting Glastonbury tickets and each year, whether I'm successful or not, I'm grateful that the process isn't like it was back then.

I'm sure plenty of you will remember, but for those who weren't trying for tickets back then here's what happened:

Tickets went on sale at 8pm on the 1st April (an apt date if ever there was one), which was a Thursday. Ticket sales were handled by a company called Aloud (relatively unknown then and I'm quite surprised to discover they still exist now given how woeful it was). The website failed (presumably because of the numbers trying) so pretty much all of the tickets were sold over the phone over a period of about 24 hours. This was in the days before social media, so there was no way of knowing any of this at the time, so no way of knowing if it was worth still trying.

Selling tickets over 24 hours probably sounds leisurely but it was a nightmare (I swear I can still hear the engaged tone when I close my eyes at night). Basically myself and many tens of thousands of others hit redial (F5 is for johnny-come-latelys) hundreds of times through the night in the hope of eventually getting through to someone. As I recall I finally got a pair of tickets (I forgot to mention that you could only buy two at a time) at some point the following afternoon when calling from the students' union, feeling like something of a zombie (even more so than usual).

There was no registration system back then (indeed Michael Eavis had something the year before about putting in place a system that favoured people who hadn't been before! You can see what a bloke called Neil from a website called efestivals though about that here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/2968484.stm) but you did have to put a name and address on each ticket to curtail touts (though you could subsequently change those details on at least one of them, negating its effectiveness somewhat). Tickets were only sold less than three months before the festival so no chance to put down a deposit and save and be certain of your place half a year in advance. 

On the other hand, tickets cost £112 and a car park ticket was a fiver.

Needless to say, the pain of the ticketing experience was forgotten when the festival rolled around and I had a truly brilliant weekend; The English National Opera on the Pyramid on Sunday morning remains one of the very best things I've seen at the festival. I enjoyed my first Glasto so much in fact that I've been to every festival since and experienced 11 more tickets days.

While I understand that the current ticketing system isn't perfect and can feel very unfair if you don't feel that you've had a chance at tickets, trust me when I say it's a lot better than it once was... (Cue the next poster saying they had their tickets for that year booked by 20.01)

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16 minutes ago, budvar said:

(Cue the next poster saying they had their tickets for that year booked by 20.01)

Actually, I can (genuinely) beat that.. the sale opened a few minutes early. I'm pretty sure it was 7:58.

Was sat in a 24 hour Computer Room at University (by coincidence, located a few hundred metres from the seetickets offices) where there was also about 30 other people trying.. No idea why I got straight through and they didn't but considering the looks I got as I smugly walked out it's amazing I even made it to the Festival.

The other note from that year.. As I understand it the reason we now have 9am Sunday sales is that the 2004 it caused the Nottingham telephone exchange to crash as aloud.com used the seetickets infrastructure which is based here. This pissed off a lot of home/business customers and the following year BT refused to sanction any time other than 9am Sunday when they knew it'd be quiet.

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My first was 2003. If memory serves me right, the sale was 7pm on a Friday. Apart from two or three occasions when my PC crashed and I had to reboot, I spent the entire evening continuously trying, eventually succeeding around 1am. It was 6 hours of going nowhere then one minute of ecstasy. 

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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. 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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2 hours ago, budvar said:

Ticket sales were handled by a company called Aloud (relatively unknown then and I'm quite surprised to discover they still exist now given how woeful it was).

When aloud did the Glasto tickets the tickets were actually sold from the See Tickets system, which Aloud used as a 'white label' outlet of their own.

I can't say I remember them still doing the tickets as late (years-wise) as 2004, but if you say they were I won't argue.

edit: just went and checked, and you're right, it was aloud. :)

 

Edited by eFestivals
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2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

When aloud did the Glasto tickets the tickets were actually sold from the See Tickets system, which Aloud used as a 'white label' outlet of their own.

I can't say I remember them still doing the tickets as late (years-wise) as 2004, but if you say they were I won't argue.

From memory.. 2004 was the first year where tickets were only sold through a single supplier ie aloud.com - in 2003 they were available from 4 or 5 places including definitely ticketmaster.

Aloud.com did it exclusively in 2004/2005 then it moved to seetickets branding when the photo registration system was introduced in 2007.

Just now, eFestivals said:

So 2003 was worse. :P

The difference would be that they were freely/easily available during those 26 hours. So the ones that missed out were the people who didn't get organised - though to be fair, lot's of people wouldn't have thought they needed to prior to that point.

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Good times, great memories.

I had the shittiest dial up internet ever so i had to rely on my mother to get me tickets. She tried in vain for hours and hours. I have no idea when she actually got tickets, it may have been in the morning at some point. 


What's forgotten about that year is the resale! Everyone I know who missed out went on, without any communication with each other, sailed through and got tickets without any problems at all!

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I remember going to the pub on the Thursday night, thinking I'll sort the tickets when I get in before I go to bed....

Pretty sure I started trying online about 11pm and, after about an hour of sleep between 4am to 5am maybe, got back up and kept on trying, eventually got tickets at about 11.30am after giving work some baloney reason why I would be in late.

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9 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

When aloud did the Glasto tickets the tickets were actually sold from the See Tickets system, which Aloud used as a 'white label' outlet of their own.

I can't say I remember them still doing the tickets as late (years-wise) as 2004, but if you say they were I won't argue.

edit: just went and checked, and you're right, it was aloud. :)

 

They did it in 2005 as well. That was the year NTL wifi couldn't cope. First year ticket sales were on a Sunday morning, got through straight away, sailed through, and payment couldn't be processed. Then my mate on a dial up eventually got through. Mental. 

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39 minutes ago, incident said:

From memory.. 2004 was the first year where tickets were only sold through a single supplier ie aloud.com - in 2003 they were available from 4 or 5 places including definitely ticketmaster.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong. As far as i remember tickets have been handled on an exclusive basis in one way or another for all of the time i've been doing doing a website about Glastonbury (which is since 1997). It's the (over?) protective-Michael-way of doing things.

There was definitely a small-ish agent who handled things before aloud did, tho I can't remember their name (pretty sure they were Bristol-based tho). 'Network' something, perhaps? Anyone remember?

I can't remember how they sold the tickets tho, so it's not impossible that they distributed some tickets to Ticketmaster, tho I do think that's unlikely from what i know of how Michael likes stuff to be done and the limitations of using other agents because of the low price of fees etc Michael insists on.

(unfortunately not all of the news items from that far back are still available here).

edit: see post a few down

 

 

Quote

Aloud.com did it exclusively in 2004/2005 then it moved to seetickets branding when the photo registration system was introduced in 2007.

The difference would be that they were freely/easily available during those 26 hours. So the ones that missed out were the people who didn't get organised - though to be fair, lot's of people wouldn't have thought they needed to prior to that point.

2003 was aloud too.

I'm pretty sure that 2002 was too - and that sale took weeks, tho only because the tickets sold slowly cos people thought they'd still get over the fence. It was people discovering in 2002 that the fence was no longer an option that caused the mad rush in 2003. 2003 defo wasn't an easy buy, it was as bad - or worse - than 2004.

Edited by eFestivals
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We didn't have internet at home so I was on the phone all night,there's a photo of me somewhere with the receiver taped to my head because I couldn't hold my arm up anymore,a friend eventually got hold of us and gave us the international number and I got through on the second go,I think that was 8am,If memory serves we got a reference number and sent a cheque off

Well worth it though,had a ball that year

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I stayed in the office that year with a few others trying to get tickets. Eventually gave up & went home at 1am, then woke up panicking at 5am and went straight back in to work. Pretty sure by the time I got in, someone on here had posted that they had used the international phone number to successfully get tickets so I gave that a go - and around 10minutes later, about 6am, I had tickets! 

Needless to say the rest of that day at work was rather slow...

 

edit: obviously was Neil's post, see above!!

Edited by mario man
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12 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

I'm pretty sure you're wrong. As far as i remember tickets have been handled on an exclusive basis in one way or another for all of the time i've been doing doing a website about Glastonbury (which is since 1997). It's the (over?) protective-Michael-way of doing things.

There was definitely a small-ish agent who handled things before aloud did, tho I can't remember their name (pretty sure they were Bristol-based tho). 'Network' something, perhaps? Anyone remember?

I can't remember how they sold the tickets tho, so it's not impossible that they distributed some tickets to Ticketmaster, tho I do think that's unlikely from what i know of how Michael likes stuff to be done and the limitations of using other agents because of the low price of fees etc Michael insists on.

 

When did they stop selling them in local record shops/HMVs

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I've just realised i've been talking out of my arse to some extent.

I had a meeting with Glasto in 2001 where (on behalf of efests) I cut a ticket deal with them for 15,000 tickets, as part-payment of a deal that would also have me run their official website.

I did their website that year, but the tickets thing never materialised. I got told something like "we've made an exclusive deal with someone else and they're not happy for you to compete with them" (that must have been aloud).

I still can't remember who did the tickets before, but I do keep returning to a memory of a company in or near Bristol.

Edited by eFestivals
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34 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

2003 was aloud too.

I'm pretty sure that 2002 was too - and that sale took weeks, tho only because the tickets sold slowly cos people thought they'd still get over the fence. It was people discovering in 2002 that the fence was no longer an option that caused the mad rush in 2003. 2003 defo wasn't an easy buy, it was as bad - or worse - than 2004.

 

In 2002 and 2003 tickets were definitely available all over the place. 2004 was the first year that Aloud/See were the exclusive sellers.

See this story from the BBC about 2003 tickets:

Quote

Tickets are available in shops around the UK, by telephone and on the internet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2901745.stm

 

EDIT: And this one, which has a quote from somebody at Shepton Mallet tourist office about selling tickets for 2003:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2906139.stm

Edited by Cheesey
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That may have been the year we stopped up all night at a my mates office.

We gave up in the early hours and then tried again after a bit of sleep at my office.

We were never successful and were resigned to not going then a miracle happened.

A week later a  mate had been billed for six tickets but only wanted two.  The guy at See Tickets said he would arrange for cancellation and reimbursement.

And I do not know how it came up but my mate asked the lad at See if he could allocate two of the to be cancelled tickets to someone else ?

The guy said he would and once our details had been given we had 2 Glasto tickets.

Apparently it was easier for See to re allocate the tickets rather than go through the cancellation and resale again

 

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5 minutes ago, Cheesey said:

 

In 2002 and 2003 tickets were definitely available all over the place. 2004 was the first year that Aloud/See were the exclusive sellers.

See this story from the BBC about 2003 tickets:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2901745.stm

the "shops around the UK" was, I think, a small number in HMV for old times sake. People were still wary about buying online back then.

I've looked back in the news items here, and aloud defo did it in 2003, so that would have been them as the exclusive online & phone outlet. I'm pretty sure it was about the same in 2002.

There was defo an exclusive deal of some sort for 2002. I remember that cos I got bumped out of an agreed ticket allocation because of it.

Edited by eFestivals
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