geeky techie chat about the ticket sale

[eFestivals]

I do hope Neil is right about reduced demand - can't see it at all from where I live & socialise, though.

am I right in thinking that peeps are able to buy 6 tickets this year, but that last year they could only buy 4?

If that's the case, then that shows that Glasto themselves are recognising a lower demand this year.

[CaledonianGonzo]

The weather's got to make a difference as well. Despite the Thursday rain, 2013's vibe was one of sun, sun, sun - whereas (while pretty mild all told) 2014 made the headlines for stages being stopped due to electrical storms.

[Superscally]

am I right in thinking that peeps are able to buy 6 tickets this year, but that last year they could only buy 4?

If that's the case, then that shows that Glasto themselves are recognising a lower demand this year.

Nah, you could get 6 last year.

[eFestivals]

Nah, you could get 6 last year.

it defo wasn't that in the April 2014 sale - it was definitely 4 tickets then (something I remember because I was wanting to get five but couldn't).

[Swieve]

Definitely 6 in Ocotber sale as we had five in our party and had one slot free which one of my best mates decided not to take up. He is like myself, a big Arcade Fire and Metallica fan. He spent the whole festival watching on the red button and texting me. Silly bugger, he even had the option of staying in my caravan lol

[zero000]

Nerdy question but is it worth me trying for tickets using my work laptop? I have to sign in remotely via a VPN I believe, though obviously I'll be using the same Wi-Fi.

[carlosj]

Nerdy question but is it worth me trying for tickets using my work laptop? I have to sign in remotely via a VPN I believe, though obviously I'll be using the same Wi-Fi.

Ask Jeffie. It worked last year in the main sale, but not this year in the coach sale.

[eFestivals]

Nerdy question but is it worth me trying for tickets using my work laptop? I have to sign in remotely via a VPN I believe, though obviously I'll be using the same Wi-Fi.

unless they're using some sort of geographic method for allocating sales and your home and work are a significant distance apart, it will make no difference whatsoever.

[Pinhead]

Someone asked who See host with? The PTR resolves to a Virgin Domain so I'm guessing they use Virgin Cloud Services or maybe just Co-Lo their own kit. The physical servers themselves will likely be shared with other services, the components of the ticket system having been virtualised. We have just got a Stingray Load Balancer here (for use with Exchange CAS and RDS Services), and that runs as a VM too these days - in fact almost all vendors are delivering VM versions of their product - even the gateway security system they use is likely just another VM.

I remember something about the security gateway that sits in front of the load balancer being posted here last year. Basically the set up was something like:

Some IP Throttling and Reputation Security Appliance (cant remember the name that was given) => Stingray Load Balancer => a very sophisticated back end Session Manager => Redirect next successful session in the pool to available web transaction processing server (used to be IIS) => SQL database (registration data) => verify and commit transaction => happy punter!

[Padgey]

They say you learn something new every day and reading through this thread this morning has definitely ticked that box, although one thing I haven't learnt is that it's still pot luck if you get a ticket!

Cheers for the education though guys.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Padgey

[Pinhead]

The current system (last years at least) is probably the fairest that I have experienced in the all the years of getting tix on line. Even though See have on occasion delivered a system for ticket day that has had a glaring design flaw that unbalances the fairness of the exercise, in recent years they have closed pretty much every short cut in the queue and so now its down to something like a 1 in 4 chance for everyone trying to get in.

Although there have been a number of different things posted on these boards over the years that you might do to 'improve' your chances technically, I believe these now make very little impact on the overall probability of getting in such is the design of the system.

[eFestivals]

The current system (last years at least) is probably the fairest that I have experienced

... which translates as: "I got a ticket".

[Pinhead]

Heh - yeah - point taken. I didn't get through tbh, but a mate did. Realistically though, having been 17 times now, I feel that I am by far less deserving of getting a ticket over someone who has only been perhaps once or even never. If I don't get one therefore, I will work it, which also contributes back to the festival.

Pooling your mates to increase your chances is about the best way I know. What used to be unfair though was when you could 'step back' and basically get 100's of tickets on the system for anyone and everyone prepared to give their details to you over faceache and so on. This didn't seem to be possible last year, mainly due to the use of a proper back end session manager.

[eFestivals]

Heh - yeah - point taken.

That's the thing, so much of people's attitudes towards the system is based around how the system works for them, rather than what the system actually does.

That gets displayed every year, with all the claims of "if you use your fast work connection you've got a better chance" or "if you use a mobile you've got a better chance", etc.

There's absolutely nothing to back up these ideas, apart from the fact that people succeeded in getting tickets when doing those things - while they completely ignore the fact that people succeeded in getting tickets doing plenty of other things.

There possibly are things which will make a difference, but we can only guess at them. We've no way of actually knowing if we've used an advantageous way or whether we've only actually got lucky.

I've got lucky in every sale until last year, when I didn't get a sniff. It was my time to be unlucky.

[Pinhead]

Yep - only having a deep inside knowledge of the system See use and exactly how it is configured might lend any true technical advantage now I reckon, unless there is a flaw in the system such as the one described above, that people identify and exploit to their advantage on the day. I reckon its been pretty well tightened up now though, and so its very much now down to sheer probability as to whether you get the systems attention now on the day.

[carlosj]

That's the thing, so much of people's attitudes towards the system is based around how the system works for them, rather than what the system actually does.

That gets displayed every year, with all the claims of "if you use your fast work connection you've got a better chance" or "if you use a mobile you've got a better chance", etc.

There's absolutely nothing to back up these ideas, apart from the fact that people succeeded in getting tickets when doing those things - while they completely ignore the fact that people succeeded in getting tickets doing plenty of other things.

There possibly are things which will make a difference, but we can only guess at them. We've no way of actually knowing if we've used an advantageous way or whether we've only actually got lucky.

I've got lucky in every sale until last year, when I didn't get a sniff. It was my time to be unlucky.

I will cling to anything to give me comfort in the run up to Sunday.

I agree that there's nothing that proves what I've done previously has given me the edge, I can only "minimise the steps" I need to take to react to the ticket page, should I get there, ie copy and paste details instead of typing. For each way that we've been lucky in the sales (adding a sense of 'my strategy worked, so I'll use it again'), others can point out that the same process didn't work for them.

The only good news I can give people is that my step-daughters won't be home on Sunday hearing me swear at the laptop.

[jeffie]

Here's hoping for probability!!

[Stu H]

Someone asked who See host with? The PTR resolves to a Virgin Domain so I'm guessing they use Virgin Cloud Services or maybe just Co-Lo their own kit. The physical servers themselves will likely be shared with other services, the components of the ticket system having been virtualised. We have just got a Stingray Load Balancer here (for use with Exchange CAS and RDS Services), and that runs as a VM too these days - in fact almost all vendors are delivering VM versions of their product - even the gateway security system they use is likely just another VM.

I remember something about the security gateway that sits in front of the load balancer being posted here last year. Basically the set up was something like:

Some IP Throttling and Reputation Security Appliance (cant remember the name that was given) => Stingray Load Balancer => a very sophisticated back end Session Manager => Redirect next successful session in the pool to available web transaction processing server (used to be IIS) => SQL database (registration data) => verify and commit transaction => happy punter!

Yeah, wouldn't surprise me if they just create the VM's for this weekend alone. Why have stand-alone physical servers sitting around all year - unless they then get used for something else.

We used to build VMs for disaster recovery tests and then just tear them down once done. Cheapest and easiest way to do it.

As I said, See Tickets have had some notable changes in the last couple of years and upped their game.

[zero000]

unless they're using some sort of geographic method for allocating sales and your home and work are a significant distance apart, it will make no difference whatsoever.

Thanks for that. I'm not IT savvy enough to tell what will actually work and what is simple superstition. Having said that I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Sunday .

[chock]

slightly off topic but my tactic last year was to set up a load of VMs with VNC installed and just flick through each one refreshing the browser.

I used digitalocean and the connections are pretty damn fast. They have recently opened a datacenter in London too which should help. Dead cheap too

I'm having a mate help me this year so probably gonna set up 10 servers each.

If anybody is interested this is the guide I followed - https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-setup-vnc-for-ubuntu-12

[Krazypinkminx]

I clicked on a link last night which took me to registration page. Then next page confirm boxes and click down menu for £50 deposit. but no next button. so I've just left it open ready in case it works on sunday.

[wweerr208]

 

Someone asked who See host with? The PTR resolves to a Virgin Domain so I'm guessing they use Virgin Cloud Services or maybe just Co-Lo their own kit. The physical servers themselves will likely be shared with other services, the components of the ticket system having been virtualised. We have just got a Stingray Load Balancer here (for use with Exchange CAS and RDS Services), and that runs as a VM too these days - in fact almost all vendors are delivering VM versions of their product - even the gateway security system they use is likely just another VM.

I remember something about the security gateway that sits in front of the load balancer being posted here last year. Basically the set up was something like:

Some IP Throttling and Reputation Security Appliance (cant remember the name that was given) => Stingray Load Balancer => a very sophisticated back end Session Manager => Redirect next successful session in the pool to available web transaction processing server (used to be IIS) => SQL database (registration data) => verify and commit transaction => happy punter!

Yep even Cisco have most of their latest products offered as virtualised boxes, I'd guess See use riverbed stuff for the firewalling stuff before the load balancing part - either way, I doubt there is a quick way in.

Edited October 3, 2014 by wweerr208

[eFestivals]

my tactic last year was to use 6 different IP addresses - which has the same effect as with a number of VMs.

And I failed.

It's simply down to luck, and nothing else. Multiple IP addresses doesn't increase that luck - unless you know for certain that they're giving preference to first-attempt IPs and less priority to multi-attempt one.

But that would be an anti-intelligent thing to do, because there's absolutely no point in doing that for a sales outlet that wants to sell its products.

Tho if you go to lots of effort to set something up and you're one of those who gets lucky (and lets face it, most people do get lucky), then nothing anyone says is going to convince you that it was just luck. You'll convince yourself that the efforts you put in was what made the difference.

[drunk pumpkin]

Apologies if this has been covered before but i've looked through all related threads and can't find an answer:

I've an IMAC and works Laptop.

Only one Broadband.

IMAC using an ethernet cable the laptop connected through WIFI.

Is there any value in me using both or am i just slowing my IP address down as they are through the same broadband?

Thanks for any advice and good luck Sunday

[wweerr208]

 

slightly off topic but my tactic last year was to set up a load of VMs with VNC installed and just flick through each one refreshing the browser.

I used digitalocean and the connections are pretty damn fast. They have recently opened a datacenter in London too which should help. Dead cheap too

I'm having a mate help me this year so probably gonna set up 10 servers each.

If anybody is interested this is the guide I followed - https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-setup-vnc-for-ubuntu-12

Whats dead cheap?

Can you PM me once you've got your tickets!!!