Tickets solding out faster and faster

[mirupuu]

Hi guys, out of interest I was wondering how come in 2011 tickets sold out in 4 hours, down to 25min last year, and 30min this year. Surely there isn't any more hype nowadays around the festival than 4, 5 years ago. any ideas as to why?

Edited April 18, 2016 by mirupuu

[NoBallGames]

Festivals have grown immensely popular. Might not be additional hype about just Glastonbury, but there is definitely HUGE additional hype surrounding music festivals. 

[moremi]

See tickets have bigger servers and can handle more tickets per minute

[incident]

Once you get to the level of instant sell out, then it's not directly related to demand.

The 2 main factors are how quickly the technology allows them to sell tickets (server capacity), and whether the Festival wish to throttle the process.

If the technology allowed and the Festival desired, then 135,000 could be sold in 1 second - regardless of whether there was 135,000 people trying or 5,000,000.

[mirupuu]

3 minutes ago, incident said:

Once you get to the level of instant sell out, then it's not directly related to demand.

The 2 main factors are how quickly the technology allows them to sell tickets (server capacity), and whether the Festival wish to throttle the process.

If the technology allowed and the Festival desired, then 135,000 could be sold in 1 second - regardless of whether there was 135,000 people trying or 5,000,000.

Ah, that's fair thanks for the explanation. I assumed it had something to do with technology, but I wasn't sure

4 minutes ago, NoBallGames said:

Festivals have grown immensely popular. Might not be additional hype about just Glastonbury, but there is definitely HUGE additional hype surrounding music festivals. 

IS there? Do you think there is a reason for this, all I see is festival becoming less and less affordable haha

 

 

[Spindles]

11 minutes ago, moremi said:

See tickets have bigger servers and can handle more tickets per minute

Just this.  Every year they have reduced the various bottlenecks and problems that have been experienced before.

[Calvin Klein]

Was it that hard to get tickets in 2011 as well? Meaning holding pages/not getting to the page at all.

 

 

[clarkete]

2 minutes ago, Calvin Klein said:

Was it that hard to get tickets in 2011 as well? Meaning holding pages/not getting to the page at all.

 

 

I couldn't tell you which years, but I've certainly had some in the past where all I saw were error pages repeatedlyand then people posting on here that it had been sold out  

[Spindles]

6 minutes ago, Calvin Klein said:

Was it that hard to get tickets in 2011 as well? Meaning holding pages/not getting to the page at all.

I'd almost given up by 11am that year, nothing but timeouts for 2 hours.  My son got through about 11:30.  We were trying at 2 locations with 4 computers.  Honestly as frustratingly difficult as it is to fail in a 30 minute window it is much worse trying all morning and still getting nowhere.

[Calvin Klein]

It has been like that since at least 2013. That's the first time I tried (got them in main sale). Then resale in 2014 and 2016.

[Matt - Ed Banger Records]

Sold out in 5 hours in 2011, I know because I spent that time pressing refresh and didn't get a sniff! Ended up working, it's a much better system now

[arcade fireman]

I remember the first time I got tickets in 2004 it was a 24 hour marathon. Madness. 

[musky]

As incidents says, it's the combination of the servers' capacity and the desire of the festival. The resale in 2013 was much quicker than expected and after it was over Emily tweeted asking for feedback on the ticketing process. Ever since we've had faster sales, typically around the 25 minute mark. To me that suggests that most people responded they preferred the faster sale, and the management of it has been adjusted accordingly.

[sully1311]

What the hell is Solding?

[mirupuu]

48 minutes ago, sully1311 said:

What the hell is Solding?

It's me being French and forgetting how to conjugate in English, very sorry...

[Purple aki squat]

36 minutes ago, mirupuu said:

It's me being French and forgetting how to conjugate in English, very sorry...

The shame I feel.

I wouldn't ever use the term conjugate.

[Watergirl]

I remember when I used to phone the NME ticket line from the office on Monday, as I didn't want to pay for the phone call myself at the weekend…...

[Joshuwarr]

I remember the fear for so long of my first Glastonbury ticket day for 2008...to only then find the tickets didn't even sell out because of the whole Jay-Z thing (who, by the way, was AMAZING). After that I think normality resumed.

[verrymerry]

I remember forgetting it was ticket day (imagine!!) and about 10am panicking and then spending hours trying for tickets. We got them but I'm sure it was only due to perseverance, which I sort of miss. If you were willing to spend half of Sunday, and I mean that literally, then you were likely to get tickets 

[Hugh Jass]

1 hour ago, Purple aki squat said:

The shame I feel.

I wouldn't ever use the term conjugate.

I love conjugate. Fantastic word.

[Purple aki squat]

37 minutes ago, Hugh Jass said:

I love conjugate. Fantastic word.

Smart Hugh Jass

[eFestivals]

13 hours ago, mirupuu said:

Hi guys, out of interest I was wondering how come in 2011 tickets sold out in 4 hours, down to 25min last year, and 30min this year. Surely there isn't any more hype nowadays around the festival than 4, 5 years ago. any ideas as to why?

It's all to do with the capabilities of the sales system, along with decisions made by the festival over how quickly t5hey'd like to sell the tickets.

I'm not entirely sure how quickly the system could sell the tickets today, but I know in the past they 'throttled' the sales speed so that the tickets were sold over a predetermined timeframe, rather than as quickly as the system could do it.

 

[saintfletch]

13 hours ago, musky said:

As incidents says, it's the combination of the servers' capacity and the desire of the festival. The resale in 2013 was much quicker than expected and after it was over Emily tweeted asking for feedback on the ticketing process. Ever since we've had faster sales, typically around the 25 minute mark. To me that suggests that most people responded they preferred the faster sale, and the management of it has been adjusted accordingly.

I sent feedback via email after missing out in the resale in 2013 after getting through 2 or 3 times to enter my details and getting booted out. I kept it very constructive and polite and thought nothing more of it. 2 days later I got a call from SeeTickets saying that they had been contacted by the festival asking them to call me and put my order through. I did tweet about this at the time and found that this happened to one other person. Very lucky indeed and forever grateful to them.

[DareToDibble]

It's been interesting reading this thread as it never occured to me they might throttle the speeds (though it sounds like that probably doesn't happen as much - if at all - any more).

Out of curiosity, why would they want to do that? Surely it looks better for the festival if it sells out in 10 minutes than 24 hours?

[maelzoid]

15 hours ago, mirupuu said:

IS there? Do you think there is a reason for this, all I see is festival becoming less and less affordable haha

 

 

Festivals are way more popular now, and I think that is what is driving the prices up. Festivals in the early / mid 90s: Glastonbury, Reading (no Leeds) and Phoenix.

The growth of festivals over the last 20 years has been phenomenal, despite the fact that consumption of recorded music seems to be on the wane.