DeanoL
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Posts posted by DeanoL
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2 minutes ago, assorted said:
It’s interesting to me that people are bothering to create and spread false versions of the “hack” or “tech loophole” with a fake, more legitimate IP address than the one actually used (I also saw this happen on Reddit). It suggests to me that there are people that are concerned about the IP address they used and are trying to misdirect now.
Possibly people trying to establish credentials but not give out something that might actually work next year or in the resale, so they can set up scam sites for those sales and redirect people to them, now this is entering the consciousness of people who know enough to follow the instructions, but not enough to understand how it works or protect against any risks.
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4 minutes ago, stuie said:
I'm not sure why my comment baffled you - there's value to the festival in it being the hottest ticket in town. Sold out in minutes isn't the same as running a ballot. People getting the hottest ticket by being determined and organised and the success stories and euphoria that comes along after that is what keeps it hot.
New blood hear about this instant sell-out sensation and want to go next year, same as Tomorrowland. After all, as it sells out in minutes it must be the bollocks, right?
Like you, I don't have any skin in this as I don't buy a ticket for me anymore but I was helping friends and apart from some tech loophole (which will be fixed) it all seems about the same as every other year since I started going so I don't know why people think they festival will suddenly change their business model.
I was baffled at the point you made about how people would stop trying after failing in the ballot for a few years on the bounce. Which didn't explain why that'd be any different than people stopping after failing in the ticket sale for a few years.
While I think you have a small point on the media point of view, I think if the festival is actually as oversubscribed as it presents, then "1 million people sign up for Glastonbury ballot" is still a big story. But I also think you're massively overstating by how much that is driving ticket sales, compared to say, the blanket BBC coverage during the weekend itself.
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2 minutes ago, NotAnInsider said:
Devils advocate on the vibe thing... Like it or not, it has changed over the years I've been going. I think a lot will agree that the vibe around certain areas of the site in the early 90s was not a good one and be thankful it changed. It's shifted again in recent years, especially after covid and not in a good way.
There are different types of organised groups hoovering up tickets; if you look around social media there is something to suggest that one of those groups are the type that are likely to be ketted up morons who wee on the land and get a bit fighty - some of that has had an especially high profile in the press this week. You could argue that those people are a negative for the festival overall and fewer of them being successful in the ticket sale would be better.
But no one has a god given right to go the festival and the thing is going to change over time. Its the natural order of things.
Yep, it's weird to see people talking about how changing the system would ruin the vibe, when people have been moaning about large groups of rowdy young lads ruining the vibe in recent years. (Admittedly, they may be different people).
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22 minutes ago, kerplunk said:
Better the devil you know
The devil you know is on the way out. That's the point I'm trying to make. There was no major problem with the system this year, or the last few years, probably not next year either. But it's going in one direction. People have realised that you have the best chance if you form a large syndicate of people going, or get loads of people to help you. That's how you effectively "game" the system.
This is going to scale up, more people will be doing it, others will spot a commercial opportunity to sell you bots that will try and get tickets for you or even people in China to do it. It started happening a few years ago, was much more prevalent this year. I expect it's only going in one direction.
The current system is on the verge of being broken. It's not broken yet, at all. That's a few years off. But I can see the writing on the wall and it's not just closing a few loopholes. It's a fundamental problem that you can't really do anything to block large group syndicates in the current system (even if you wanted to) and if you can't/don't block that, you also can't block bot/people farms either because they present identical to large group syndicates to your system.
This stuff has always happened, but it does seem like we've hit a tipping point this year.
(And I say all this as someone who tried for tickets for a friend of a friend so experienced the sale, but never had any intention of going this year, likely never will again to be honest, so I don't have any skin in this game, I'm just fascinated by it)
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37 minutes ago, stuie said:
Just as an example, Sunday morning news featured BBC and Sky stories 'Glastonbury has sold out in minutes' - I doubt they'd even bother mentioning they'd held their annual ticket raffle.
Also, people would lose interest entering their details after several years of not winning.
The hard to get tickets are very much part of the Glastonbury brand now and they'll do whatever they can to keep it that way.
You'd have a different news story that was "1 million people entered the ballot for Glastonbury tickets" instead. But I agree it might not land in quite the same way.
I'm baffled by your other two comments though. Why are people not losing interest after several years of trying for tickets and failing to get them at the moment? Why does a ballot mean more people lose interest? It'd go the other way surely - it requires less effort for a ballot (which as others have pointed out, has its own drawbacks) but that means people are more likely to give it a go anyway?
The tickets are still going to be as hard to get as before, because you're still going to have more demand than supply. Ballot or current system.
32 minutes ago, stuie said:Just one more thing that's not been mentioned that occurred to me last night - for the festival to run smoothly, you need a core base of ticket holders that have been there before and know their way around.
If you have a ticket ballot and the result of that is that > 80% of people have never been before suddenly get tickets, the place would be absolute carnage with no one having a clue where they are going.
Yes, maps and signs help and there are new people each year but crowds of those sizes flow easier when people are familiar with their surroundings.
I think that's a legit concern but then you already have a third of people on site being crew who have likely been before, so there's some balance.
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36 minutes ago, Nobby's Old Boots said:
Presumably a ballot system would mean you're sent a link to buy tickets, so it would be easily exploited as people have suggested - people wouldn't accidentally buy multiple tickets.
Nah you'd just put your card details in when you entered the ballot and if successful you'd get charged. It's a system used by plenty of other events and it works. It's not perfect, has its own issues of course, but no more than the existing system does.
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52 minutes ago, stuie said:
But… part of the appeal of Glasto now is how hard it is to get tickets - they are not going to throw that away, along with all the free media attention that goes with it. Over a few years interest would dwindle and then suddenly you’ve got an event that doesn’t sell out again.
But people are also saying a ballot would make it harder to get tickets... so I'm not sure how the "interest would dwindle" thing would work. I think that's more likely with the current progression of things, to be honest. With a ballot your chance of a ticket might be 1 in 5 or whatever but you'd know you always have a chance. Right now we're already starting to hear "if you're not in a big group, may as well not bother" which will mean more people switch to big groups, which makes it harder for anyone else, and which will lead to essentially reverse touting, where people sell bot/people farms as ways of helping you secure tickets. That's way more off-putting than a system people can actually understand.
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5 hours ago, Festival Sounds Podcast said:
People asking for a ballot are asking a successful business, that sells out every year, to change the way they sell tickets.
This is despite those asking for a ballot continuing to try to buy tickets via a means they don’t like.
So the demand doesn’t decrease. The festival thrives based off that demand. It markets itself based on that demand.
They are not going to change to ballot. Why would they? This method is good business.
Because long term demand will drop if people think there is "no chance" of getting tickets unless they have a special system or big group.
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2 hours ago, stuie said:
Fair enough, I apologise for tarring you with the same brush. I think you’re the exception rather than the norm. I’d even say I don’t think the festival care about the fairness enough to change it. They sell all the tickets, the demand is part of their reputation, it keeps it in the social media and the news on ticket day. They can even run massive charity raffles and auctions because of the left over demand.
And I said he’s an alt account, btw, which I thought several weeks ago.
If the festival don't care about fairness and just want to sell all the tickets, why do they run a massively complex and costly registration system with photos just to stop touting?
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At £400 per ticket the notion that a ballot would lead to people who weren't really bothered either way still buying tickets seems daft to me. May have been a good argument when tickets were £150 but I don't think it stands up anymore.
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Probably doesn't help that so many events are so hard to get tickets for now, Glastonbury is no longer the anomaly. It's every big tour. People know what to do because they've been practicing with tickets for Taylor Swift etc.
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2 minutes ago, Dave_c said:
It may be, but most people wouldn't even think of trying to understand it because they would assume it is too complicated so they will inevitably go to getting helpers as a default.
Well I think most people just end up being in the group of someone else who is co-ordinating, which is why they instantly go to "it's easy". Try being the person coordinating the groups for 24+ people and I promise after the first week you'll be going "so how complicated is this DNS stuff then?" 😄
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Just now, Dave_c said:
It does a bit, but organising friends to try for you is more within everyone's ability than understanding the tech behind how the system works and how to use that to your advantage.
I disagree hugely on that. The tech is basic and can be taught fairly easily. The skills to organise large groups of people are rarer.
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9 minutes ago, beforreal said:
posting this on an alt... not trying to inflame, serious question
was 100 people on a festival forum all trying for crazyfool in the 2022 resale fair?
it was noble, yes. a great act of community– undoubtedly
but was it fair? was it moral? is that not precisely the kind of tag-team strategy that would take a ticket out the hands of our imaginary 50 year old solo attendee?
spreadsheet assistance on here has existed for many years. @BBC7BBCHEAVEN has it right - others have now nicked an advantage which efests long prided itself in. dozens + dozens of strangers helping one person out is not the dictionary definition of a level playing field. its a way to get a leg up , just like any other... whats good for the goose is good for the gander
until you face that hard truth with clear eyes I do not really think a lot of the grousing today about discord/reddit/whats app-using young people breaking big with syndicates and clever tech tricks stands up
I don't think it's about criticism so much as that you're right - that approach has gone mainstream now. Which yes, has the side effect of making it harder for those that have been doing it for years through this forum, which some are miffed about. But there's a larger point about how that influences the ticket buying process as a whole, because it's possible we've hit a sort of critical mass where enough people are doing it that more and more people will do it, and it'll end up being the only viable way to get tickets.
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3 minutes ago, Dave_c said:
No source other than a hunch. I don't think having big groups trying is gaming the system, it's more when people are IT savvy and can figure out back door links and all that stuff I don't understand!
I would say the skill required to gather and coordinate a group of 64 people to all work together is loads harder than the skill needed to mess around with the hosts file. I could teach most people the latter, including the theory behind it, in a half hour chat.
Of course, reality is most people in big groups are not coordinating 64 people. One of the other 63 people is!
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Also I did just google "glastonbury ticket helper service" and the first result was Bark telling me that's a service they offer...
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5 minutes ago, gfa said:
Its not like you can google glastonbury ticket helpers . com etc
Yet. I think we'll see it much more commercialised next year.
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4 minutes ago, Jack.194 said:
I can see why people think the DNS hack is wrong, but now people are saying it’s immoral to group up with others?
Next you’ll be saying refreshing manually more than every 20 seconds shouldn’t be allowed.
It's more there's no fundamental difference between the two. I don't have a problem with people doing the whole huge group thing, but when those same people get annoyed that others are using bots or using the DNS hack, I just find it a bit hypocritical. Neither is expressly forbidden in the rules anywhere. And if we want to talk about intent, I suspect the festival would rather have neither of them.
But it ultimately boils down to "Rewarding effort is good, it should give you an advantage, up to the amount and type of effort I am willing to put in. After that, extra effort is bad or cheating and should be banned."
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£500 gives you 50 people trying for you at UK minimum wage. You'd probably get tickets.
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2 minutes ago, Dave_c said:
The system is fine as it is. The reality is the odds are massively against you, it is a lottery and down to luck. I would say less than 5% of tickets went to people gaming the system, the rest just went to regular punters going through the motions like the rest of us.
Depends if you include "gaming the system" being large groups/syndicates or not. And how large a group does it have to be to count as "gaming" it?
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2 minutes ago, stuie said:
I think what you think is happening and what is actually happening is different.
Glasto Chat is full of people who just got tickets in the normal way. On Thursday a friends dad got through on his old iPad. 150k tickets didn’t go to bots and geeks.
Do you think a greater proportion of tickets went to such folk (and I'm including the "loads of friends in a spreadsheet" as geeks) though than say last year? And do you think that proportion will go up or down next year?
I don't expect them to change the whole thing right off next year, but I think this is heading in one direction and I suspect some ticketing changes to happen during the next fallow year.
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1 minute ago, Crazyfool01 said:
Then you get a multiple registration issue … it’ seems that whatever system there is people will find ways to game it
True. I 100% agree that whatever the system is, ways will be found to game it. But I'd also say we've had the same system for about ten festivals now (most of the 00s there were workarounds or the festival wasn't selling well anyway) and we've only just reached the point where people are really aggressively gaming it.
Any system will get gamed, but I'm now at the point I'd agree that a new system might get gamed "less". Like, the stuff being done this year and last was possible back in 2015 but wasn't happening then because... ? I don't know. So while there are always theoretical ways to game the system, if those happen in practice is a different question. And if they happen in practice and *at scale* is also a different question.
A reset of the system, requiring new methods for "gaming" might be useful in and of itself, as it will take a good few years for any such methods to start percolating out and becoming more widely used. Doesn't necessarily need to be more secure. Just being different may be sufficient.
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3 minutes ago, gigpusher said:
One of my friends (who is fit and capable of running a marathon) has been trying to get into the London Marathon for 15 years in a row and keeps failing.
My husbands cousin saw him run a marathon and decided from zero fitness she wanted to try. She got in first time, did the couch to 5 k, realised there was no way she'd be able to run a marathon and wasted a place completely.
This is the kind of thing that could happen with a ballot in place because there is literally no effort whatsoever required on your part to enter a ballot.
The ticket would just go in the resale though, so wouldn't be wasted - for Glasto at least don't know about the marathon.
QuoteI hope any backdoor methods are stopped but everyone has the ability to mash f5, be organised and ask friends to help them.
People have a different amount of friends. People have a different amount of tech knowledge. It's fine to leverage one, but not the other.
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1 minute ago, Crazyfool01 said:
Issue with that is the 2 different sales and groups changing dependant on what happens in the first one
Honestly I think it would be a fix to only let people try for one or other. The "coach sale first" thing was designed to encourage people to take public transport but reality is there's enough demand regardless and it'd be better to see coach tickets go to people who *want* to take the coach rather than those doing it begrudgingly because they're worried about not getting tickets on the Sunday.
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2024 Ticket Buying Tips
in Chat
Posted · Edited by DeanoL
It's purely anecdotal. No-one has data. But having done every single sale since 2003, and have been on this forum and predecessors reading the reactions to everything, I sense that I have a feel for it. For sure if I decide to go again, I'll use a small bot farm to get tickets.
But this is a discussion forum, I'm happy to hear why I might be wrong, no-one can prove anything either way. Hell I thought demand would be down this year and was totally wrong on that too. I *want* to hear about why people think differently and different takes on this. It's why I'm here. No interest at all in convincing people that I'm right, but I'd assume others here are interested in hearing different points of view as well.
Peak fairness was, of course, 2008.