geeky techie chat about the ticket sale

[Pinhead]

Funnily enough the guy who got them for me this year experienced the same effect - rather than hammer F5 he let the browser sessions (3) refresh manually themselves every 20 seconds and got in around 16 mins, all browsers connecting within the 20 second refresh timer window (as has been observed before with the system).

[LondonTom]

it could be, tho it's a daft way to set anything up with any IP-based blocking, as there's plenty of people who will be coming from just one IP address as far as the See servers know (people using their mobile phone providers' net access, for example).

Agreed, but I think it might be blocking something based on sessions?

On my PC I opened the page in one tab in each of Chrome, Firefox, IE and Opera. Chrome got through 3 times. (3rd time just before sell out sadly for someone else). Firefox and IE kept getting the standard busy/wait 20 seconds page. However Opera timed out completely, never even loading the page, just a white page which was just plain odd considering everything (and my mobile/tablet to got the standard page.).

Seeing plenty of people with the payment page going down, happened to me to actually, it seemed to hang quite a bit/get time out page but clicking submit again (dangerous for payments I know! ) or hitting back and then trying again worked for me.

[DeanoL]

it could be, tho it's a daft way to set anything up with any IP-based blocking, as there's plenty of people who will be coming from just one IP address as far as the See servers know (people using their mobile phone providers' net access, for example).

Just as with the sales part, a person can only get that far if there's a spare slot in the system. Likewise, a person could only get a server session if the server has a free session to give them.

There's definitely something which locks people out in exactly the same way on the efests system if I allow server load to go too high (I've got better ways of managing the load in place now than I've had in the past, which seems to have stopped it happening), and as there's no IP blocking being used on the efests set-up it makes sense that the issue is caused by the servers getting over-loaded.

The other thing I wondered, the machine that go through had a booking page open from Tuesday. One of the first things I did was try submitting that. Got the holding page, and also go the holding page on the other browsers too. At the time I thought having that page open had done nothing, now I'm wondering if it got me past the first gate, so to speak.

[phillyfaddle]

The one year I let the tabs autorefresh I got nothing, nada, zilch. Despite filling in the booking form and sibmitting 9 or 10 times. Kind of kills that theory?

[majormajormajor]

you're talking bollocks.

There's no research that will increase your chances.

Only the number of attempts at getting a page - or simple luck of your timing in requesting a page - increases your chances.

don't agree with you there. i bought myself and friends tickets in late may both last year and the year before, as i was at my PC during the day and knew that some tickets would be on sale sometime that week. luckily, i am at my pc all day every day for work. like i said -- if you're prepared. ie. if you can sit at your pc or receive a text/e-mail when there's a change on the seetickets website, i am pretty certain you will get a ticket.

[majormajormajor]

Agree with this. The key word being "almost". I am the only person in my buying circle who actually gets tickets (every year since 2007) I share the relevant info every year. My mates think I have a magic button on my keyboard that says "buy Glasto tickets" but you can only ever be sure of what you do during the sale and I believe actual perserverance is the key. It is hardcore intent and sheer will that gets you through.

my friends think exactly the same thing. 'the ticket master strikes again' they say. bollocks - just do some prep work and research into how this stuff works and you have an advantage.

Edited October 6, 2014 by majormajormajor

[majormajormajor]

Got tickets in under 5 mins by not pressing f5, i get them every year by letting it refresh itself and have never waited more then 10 mins for a ticket. I keep thinking every year my luck will run out but seem to get lucky every year. My mate lets it auto refresh and she gets them every time aswell

nice. you're actually drastically reducing your chances with that strategy, but if it works for you and increases my chances, i say go for it!

[parsonjack]

It would need a moron to be configuring See's kit for that to be happening.

is that the same 'moron' who screwed up the DNS in 2012?

[eFestivals]

Agreed, but I think it might be blocking something based on sessions?

All sessions are browser specific, not IP specific.

My take is that's happening, because the server is too overloaded to allocate a 'new' browser a session, and without getting that session the browser is then 'locked out'.

On my PC I opened the page in one tab in each of Chrome, Firefox, IE and Opera. Chrome got through 3 times. (3rd time just before sell out sadly for someone else). Firefox and IE kept getting the standard busy/wait 20 seconds page. However Opera timed out completely, never even loading the page, just a white page which was just plain odd considering everything (and my mobile/tablet to got the standard page.).

the differences you got from each browser are much better explained from any technical angle by what See's servers were doing in response to each request than anything about your PC, the browsers, or your 'net connection.

Every request will hit the See servers at different moments, so the fact of one response means nothing to the others.

Seeing plenty of people with the payment page going down, happened to me to actually, it seemed to hang quite a bit/get time out page but clicking submit again (dangerous for payments I know! ) or hitting back and then trying again worked for me.

that appears to be a session problem at See's end. No other technical explanation seems to fit that scenario.

[UEF]

How many more years are See going to get this tender before someone more capable steps up?

[majormajormajor]

How many more years are See going to get this tender before someone more capable steps up?

what exactly do you find that they are incapable of? they seem pretty capable to me.

my guess is you didn't get a ticket and are a bit upset.

Edited October 6, 2014 by majormajormajor

[parsonjack]

you're talking bollocks.

There's no research that will increase your chances.

Only the number of attempts at getting a page - or simple luck of your timing in requesting a page - increases your chances.

not totally the case i think....i have been 'researching' See's front end set up for a while and i now know for a fact that they have a second datacentre with at least 2 webheads that serve sessions - even while the main DNS points to the 3 main servers that were used for the sale yesterday.

a host file hack to point to one of these got me in instantly for the resale in april when i bought a ticket...and it got me in on wednesday to buy a coach ticket when my other device with stock DNS was getting nowhere repeatedly.

yes...i accept it could have simply been luck though.

now the bad news....it didn't work at all yesterday...i could open and refresh the page before the sale but at exactly 0900 a refresh generated a DNS error and page unavailable....once the sale completed it started working again...and still does now.

not sure how but i guess they have blocked it after detecting hits in this manner...

[efcfanwirral]

How many more years are See going to get this tender before someone more capable steps up?

but "More capable" means "less chance" right? the more issues there are the more chance persistence will pay off - if it goes in 2 minutes we will realistically all be saying goodbye to glastonbury apart from the odd year as there will be no way to get around it?

[parsonjack]

How many more years are See going to get this tender before someone more capable steps up?

i would have said that selling 130,000 tickets in less than 30 minutes makes them pretty capable tbh.

[eFestivals]

How many more years are See going to get this tender before someone more capable steps up?

Michael will be happy to take your cheaper offer to do the same thing once you've demonstrated to him your superior technical skills.

Guess what? No one else wants the job (seriously!) at a price that see are doing it for. You included, despite the guff you'll happily spout.

[eFestivals]

not totally the case i think....i have been 'researching' See's front end set up for a while and i now know for a fact that they have a second datacentre with at least 2 webheads that serve sessions - even while the main DNS points to the 3 main servers that were used for the sale yesterday.

a host file hack to point to one of these got me in instantly for the resale in april when i bought a ticket...and it got me in on wednesday to buy a coach ticket when my other device with stock DNS was getting nowhere repeatedly.

yes...i accept it could have simply been luck though.

now the bad news....it didn't work at all yesterday...i could open and refresh the page before the sale but at exactly 0900 a refresh generated a DNS error and page unavailable....once the sale completed it started working again...and still does now.

not sure how but i guess they have blocked it after detecting hits in this manner...

Nah ... all you'll have been doing is directing your traffic to all to one server, instead of it being randomly directed at three servers.

You decreased your chances via your research, you didn't increase it.

[storm]

hi, can someone here explain why this happens please?

. I needed to send the URL for tickets to someone and when I copied and pasted it it was like this http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/v-v/2f050700efcc6cb09d704b29a27db714173356-16609353 instead of the glastonbury.seetickets.com it was linked as.

On Sunday if you put the link into a browser, it tried to load for a while and then brought up page not found (this was before the sale when you could get onto the page no problem)

. I just tried it again and it still gives the weird link but, after a while loading, it goes to the correct URL despite what it says in the link.

I'm no techie so I have no idea if this is obvious but it's been bugging me so thought I'd ask you all here to explain if you don't mind. Thanks

Btw for the record, I got 6 coach tickets wed using one window on chrome that I refreshed myself. On Sunday I had one window on chrome which I refreshed myself and one on auto refresh on IE that got through and I got 6 tickets. It really is all luck

Edited October 6, 2014 by storm

[eFestivals]

hi, can someone here explain why this happens please?

. I needed to send the URL for tickets to someone and when I copied and pasted it it was like this http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/v-v/2f050700efcc6cb09d704b29a27db714173356-16609353 instead of the glastonbury.seetickets.com it was linked as.

On Sunday if you put the link into a browser, it tried to load for a while and then brought up page not found (this was before the sale when you could get onto the page no problem)

. I just tried it again and it still gives the weird link but, after a while loading, it goes to the correct URL despite what it says in the link.

I'm no techie so I have no idea if this is obvious but it's been bugging me so thought I'd ask you all here to explain if you don't mind. Thanks

Btw for the record, I got 6 coach tickets wed using one window on chrome. Sunday one window on chrome which I refreshed myself and one on auto refresh on IE that got through and I got 6 tickets. It really is all luck

I've just looked up vvhp.net, and it's a domain that's registered to Universal Music.

No idea how or why you came across it as part of the sale - tho it currently directs to the sold out page.

So either it was something used to distribute tickets to record companies (who get a large, over-priced allocation for use by their staff), or someone there set themselves up an easy redirect.

[eFestivals]

have just taken a closer look at the re-direct - and it defo looks like it was a 'special' channel for universal music to buy tickets, as it has extra parameters to the redirect.

Edited October 6, 2014 by eFestivals

[storm]

I've just looked up vvhp.net, and it's a domain that's registered to Universal Music.

No idea how or why you came across it as part of the sale - tho it currently directs to the sold out page.

So either it was something used to distribute tickets to record companies (who get a large, over-priced allocation for use by their staff), or someone there set themselves up an easy redirect.

have just taken a closer look at the re-direct - and it defo looks like it was a 'special' channel for universal music to buy tickets, as it has extra parameters to the redirect.

Thanks Neil it was bugging me so I had to ask someone who knows about these things., I just copied it from the email Glastonbury sent on 15th sept with ticket info and dates of sale etc.

Even now if I click copy on the link in my email and paste it that's what I get, eventhough if I click enter with that link in the browser, it goes to the Glastonbury page and if I click the link direct it goes to the page with the URL of tickets sold out.

That is weird, maybe I was an insider with a priority link and I didn't even know

Edited October 6, 2014 by storm

[Vacant0]

How many more years are See going to get this tender before someone more capable steps up?

In fairness, they've come a long, long way over the last decade. I can remember spending hours and hours refreshing blank screens and calling an engaged tone back when Reading Festival used to sell out.

I'm not sure who else there is that could do it better - or what better would even look like really.

[tweed1981]

To be fair the media love a story about a website crashing.

they were all over the DVLA one the other day, Glastonbury always gets a lot of headlines and if the ticket process isn't up to it then that will get headlines too. People want the process to take longer to make it fairer but that may mean bad press for see and Glastonbury. I don't know why they would want that if they can avoid it.

See have managed to shift all the tickets in less than half an hour so I don't see how they have done anything than a perfect job for the remit they have.

[UEF]

have just taken a closer look at the re-direct - and it defo looks like it was a 'special' channel for universal music to buy tickets, as it has extra parameters to the redirect.

Utter 'guff' I'm afraid - the domain is used by the email marketing system that emailed everyone on 15/16 September from "Glastonbury Festival". Even the links to the FAQ, the online shop and their Facebook link use it.

[eFestivals]

Utter 'guff' I'm afraid - the domain is used by the email marketing system that emailed everyone on 15/16 September from "Glastonbury Festival". Even the links to the FAQ, the online shop and their Facebook link use it.

it's still a universal music URL, as a whois lookup will tell you, and the full redirect on that URL will also show you UMG's affiliate tag with See Tickets, and more.

Why it's been used I dunno, but that's what it is and what the redirect is.

Is it more guff than you being able to do a better job than see?

wget http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/v-v/2f050700efcc6cb09d704b29a27db714173356-16609353

--2014-10-06 14:48:37-- http://zaphod.uk.vvhp.net/v-v/2f050700efcc6cb09d704b29a27db714173356-16609353

Resolving zaphod.uk.vvhp.net... 83.245.79.163

Connecting to zaphod.uk.vvhp.net|83.245.79.163|:80... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found

Location: http://glastonbury.seetickets.com?aff=id1umg&src=UMGUK5391-364972 [following]

--2014-10-06 14:48:37-- http://glastonbury.seetickets.com/?aff=id1umg&src=UMGUK5391-364972

Resolving glastonbury.seetickets.com... 194.168.202.218, 194.168.202.201, 194.168.202.202

Connecting to glastonbury.seetickets.com|194.168.202.218|:80... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily

Location: /content/soldout [following]

--2014-10-06 14:48:37-- http://glastonbury.seetickets.com/content/soldout

Reusing existing connection to glastonbury.seetickets.com:80.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK

Length: 6834 (6.7K) [text/html]

Edited October 6, 2014 by eFestivals

[UEF]

Looks like simple email clickthrough tracking to me. Very commonly used in marketing campaigns.