What I learnt during the ticket sale.

[Thunderstruck]

On 10/5/2018 at 10:58 AM, Superscally said:

Let's hope I get that far!

 

You get through? We tried for some friends and got some. Timer was indeed there again with tickets held. I think it is a good change.

[cb4747]

I learnt that it is not healthy to stress over things which are ultimately out of my control. My anxiety got way out of hand over something it needn’t have. 

And to trust my partner. 

Edited October 8, 2018 by cb4747

[FuzzyDunlop]

I learnt its down to luck... which is bssically a ballot.

 

[Krazypinkminx]

7 hours ago, SighMo said:

I learn't that I need to take a deep breath, give my head a shake and then continue to input my card details. Firstly I missed a number out and then I found I had totally forgot to enter the expiry date. Only found out this once the card had been rejected and I carefully put the details in from my wife's 'emergency' holiday credit card which she'd left me in the event of an emergency before she went out. I was honestly shaking like a leaf and had less than a minute left on the countdown when it went through.

I pressed buy tickets and it bounced back because I copy and pasted a link instead of card number, ahhhhh lucky I managed to copy the card number and submit ok!

[pnw4]

The holding page this year didn't give the suggestion to try manual refreshing, just to wait for the auto 20 s refresh. 

Is there a consensus on whether manual refreshing was worth it?

[Crazyfool01]

I learnt how bloody fantastic some of the people on here that ive never met are .... 2x I have  tickets thanks to efest "strangers"  

[Keithy]

1 hour ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

When three of my four laptops went down I just concentrated on the one working laptop that had a holding page and just refreshed that diligently for 36 minutes with no joy.

With benefit of hindsight I should’ve got the mate who was next to useless to take over rerfreshing this laptop and I could’ve tried to get the others working on different browsers etc.

Appreciate you didn't get tickets and are frustrated so perhaps don't want to hear the following.... but to clear up a few similar issues that I've seen from others as well.

1. I presume you mean 'down' as the browser not getting to the holding page rather than 'down' as in the laptop being broken. If it's the former then you shouldn't have stopped using them. Not getting to the holding page doesn't mean it's 'down', there just isn't any more session capacity on those web servers for more connections to the holding page. You should have kept F5ing those too so that they'd establish a session on the holding page when one came available.

2. Changing the browser would not have made any difference. It would still be coming from the same IP as the 'broken browser' and be seen by the See servers as the same session. If you had got in on a different browser, you may have surmised that the different browser 'fixed' it but then you are getting into causation. It's not the browser that's 'fixed' it, it's the act of refreshing the session, which is what opening a new browser session would do - but so would have F5 on a 'broken' browser. 

I don't want to kick a person when they are down as I know how gutting it is to miss out in the main sale (hopefully you'll get lucky in the resale like I have in the past) but in this instance, you had 4 possible connections to the See Ticket servers and chose to stop using 3 of them.  I had similar issues whereby on a couple of devices I couldn't get to the holding page.....eventually got into the holding page after much F5'ing. 

 

As for the general ticketing issues, my two cents is that it's the best imperfect system we have. I think Emily's '2 million registrations' is a bit of a red herring as that doesn't reflect how many people were trying and more crucially, how many sessions were trying to connect. Getting figures on the number of connection attempts or 'hits' on the See Ticket servers would be much more meaningful to establish how busy it was.

When you break the numbers down, it's very hard to still get a ticket. 180,000 tickets. Most people I imagine buy between 2 and 6 tickets in each booking. So lets say an average of 4 (though I suspect it's nearer to 5/6). That means there are only 45,000 booking 'slots' before it sells out on a 4 ticket purchase average. There's no way of changing that number. Even if you say it's a max of 4 tickets per booking. Still 45,000 'slots'. If you take it down to 2 tickets per booking...well then that causes it's own issues around groups of friends going. For me,  a big part of Glastonbury is the community feel and a lot of that comes from groups of friends going together.

And for all the complaints against See, processing 45,000 transactions over 30 minutes is still a good rate. 1,500 transactions a minute.

 

[Keithy]

35 minutes ago, pnw4 said:

The holding page this year didn't give the suggestion to try manual refreshing, just to wait for the auto 20 s refresh. 

Is there a consensus on whether manual refreshing was worth it?

yes. It's always worth it. Until the page refreshes, you don't try and establish a new connection with the servers to try and get a session. 

If they system was a queue then refreshing would be pointless as it wouldn't change your spot in the queue. But it's not a queue, it's a free for all. The more often you refresh, the better chances you have of picking up a free session on the See servers.

[iloveglasto]

I learnt that speed of connection, multiple browsers and over thinking things is a waste of time. I managed to get through in a field (I was fishing) with a laptop tethered to a mobile with one tab and one browser (IE) and f5'ing every 3 seconds or so. I've learnt it really is down to luck of getting a slot on the booking system. Next year I wont over analyse or worry like I have done this year (Spent far too much work time on these threads).

For those who didn't manage to get a ticket I wish you all luck in the resales. I will be helping a mate from work try as he and his crew missed out and he was trying from work with superfast broadband and multiple devices.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

5 minutes ago, Keithy said:

Appreciate you didn't get tickets and are frustrated so perhaps don't want to hear the following.... but to clear up a few similar issues that I've seen from others as well.

1. I presume you mean 'down' as the browser not getting to the holding page rather than 'down' as in the laptop being broken. If it's the former then you shouldn't have stopped using them. Not getting to the holding page doesn't mean it's 'down', there just isn't any more session capacity on those web servers for more connections to the holding page. You should have kept F5ing those too so that they'd establish a session on the holding page when one came available.

2. Changing the browser would not have made any difference. It would still be coming from the same IP as the 'broken browser' and be seen by the See servers as the same session. If you had got in on a different browser, you may have surmised that the different browser 'fixed' it but then you are getting into causation. It's not the browser that's 'fixed' it, it's the act of refreshing the session, which is what opening a new browser session would do - but so would have F5 on a 'broken' browser. 

I don't want to kick a person when they are down as I know how gutting it is to miss out in the main sale (hopefully you'll get lucky in the resale like I have in the past) but in this instance, you had 4 possible connections to the See Ticket servers and chose to stop using 3 of them.  I had similar issues whereby on a couple of devices I couldn't get to the holding page.....eventually got into the holding page after much F5'ing. 

 

As for the general ticketing issues, my two cents is that it's the best imperfect system we have. I think Emily's '2 million registrations' is a bit of a red herring as that doesn't reflect how many people were trying and more crucially, how many sessions were trying to connect. Getting figures on the number of connection attempts or 'hits' on the See Ticket servers would be much more meaningful to establish how busy it was.

When you break the numbers down, it's very hard to still get a ticket. 180,000 tickets. Most people I imagine buy between 2 and 6 tickets in each booking. So lets say an average of 4 (though I suspect it's nearer to 5/6). That means there are only 45,000 booking 'slots' before it sells out on a 4 ticket purchase average. There's no way of changing that number. Even if you say it's a max of 4 tickets per booking. Still 45,000 'slots'. If you take it down to 2 tickets per booking...well then that causes it's own issues around groups of friends going. For me,  a big part of Glastonbury is the community feel and a lot of that comes from groups of friends going together.

And for all the complaints against See, processing 45,000 transactions over 30 minutes is still a good rate. 1,500 transactions a minute.

 

I fully appreciate what your saying, the difficulty is that I had a really responsive holding screen and I didn’t want to waste two or three minutes fiddling around with the other three laptops when I could’ve been giving myself a chance once a second for those two/three minutes.

In hindsight it was a mistake which I have recognised by acknowledging I should’ve got my friend to take over the F5ing while I fiddled around with the other laptops, thisnwouldve given me the best if both worlds.

[Keithy]

9 minutes ago, iloveglasto said:

I learnt that speed of connection, multiple browsers and over thinking things is a waste of time. I managed to get through in a field (I was fishing) with a laptop tethered to a mobile with one tab and one browser (IE) and f5'ing every 3 seconds or so. I've learnt it really is down to luck of getting a slot on the booking system. Next year I wont over analyse or worry like I have done this year (Spent far too much work time on these threads).

For those who didn't manage to get a ticket I wish you all luck in the resales. I will be helping a mate from work try as he and his crew missed out and he was trying from work with superfast broadband and multiple devices.

Exactly. People get hung up on speed of connections and multiple browsers. Don't make a jot of difference. It's just sheer luck of a session on the servers being open when you refresh your connection. 

The only way to very marginally tilt the odds in your favour is to establish more connections through mobile phone tethering, etc

[Yokel Again]

It's luck. If you've been to loads you are very lucky, but probably got to accept you are due a year missing out, the chances say you are.

Feel for anybody who didn't get one. But, it might not seem like it, but there is more to life (sorry, know it hurts).

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

I learnt that my stress levels this Autumn are noticeably far lower than normal, which is nice.
After previous years of breaking my keyboard's F5 and worrying/being excited, I'm far mellower than normal.
I also feel no pressure to check this website five times a day now just in case another band gets added to the rumour list/gets confirmed, which is what I do when I have a ticket in October - and that continues right up until the full announcement in April/May whenever it is.

Congratulations to everyone who got a ticket though, I'm sure it'll be mega. Enjoy the excitement leading all the way up until June!

[Brave Sir Robin]

1. That I should have used one of those text replacement things people on here were talking about. Copying and pasting with shaky hands is tricky!

2. Plug a mouse into the laptop, the little pad thing was not the best in a rush (or maybe I just need a new laptop...)

3. Don't refresh the site too many times the day before while playing around with the refresh limit, multiple browsers etc - Seetickets blocked my IP!

45 minutes ago, Keithy said:

When you break the numbers down, it's very hard to still get a ticket. 180,000 tickets.

It's 'only' 135,000 punters tickets, isn't it? Rest are staff/performers etc.

[Mr.Tease]

1 hour ago, pnw4 said:

The holding page this year didn't give the suggestion to try manual refreshing, just to wait for the auto 20 s refresh. 

Is there a consensus on whether manual refreshing was worth it?

Just relying on the auto refresh means it will only try accessing the site once every 20 seconds. It literally just refreshes the page once very 20 seconds. Manually refreshing gives you 20 attempts to access the site in 20 seconds (assuming you don't risk exceeding the 60 refreshes per minute), so the odds are 20 times better.

[Keithy]

6 minutes ago, Brave Sir Robin said:

It's 'only' 135,000 punters tickets, isn't it? Rest are staff/performers etc.

Good point! The odds are even lower then!!

[sinhala]

11 minutes ago, Brave Sir Robin said:

1. That I should have used one of those text replacement things people on here were talking about. Copying and pasting with shaky hands is tricky!

2. Plug a mouse into the laptop, the little pad thing was not the best in a rush (or maybe I just need a new laptop...)

3. Don't refresh the site too many times the day before while playing around with the refresh limit, multiple browsers etc - Seetickets blocked my IP!

It's 'only' 135,000 punters tickets, isn't it? Rest are staff/performers etc.

And 25,000 of those are coach tickets, so only around 110,000 on the Sunday.

[clarkete]

48 minutes ago, Yokel Again said:

But, it might not seem like it, but there is more to life (sorry, know it hurts).

Burn the heretic! 

[Padgey]

A work colleague had 2 laptops and an ipad on the go, it was the ipad that got in which he wasn't refreshing.  Does this suggest the F5 pressing is a thing of the past?

[pnw4]

19 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

Just relying on the auto refresh means it will only try accessing the site once every 20 seconds. It literally just refreshes the page once very 20 seconds. Manually refreshing gives you 20 attempts to access the site in 20 seconds (assuming you don't risk exceeding the 60 refreshes per minute), so the odds are 20 times better.

Yes that makes sense. It's just that some previous posts in this thread suggested that this shortened version of the holding page only appeared when the 60 refreshes per minute limit had been exceeded, which I hadn't, so it got me worried!  

So it seems this holding page was just a re-worded version of last years' holding page and the advice to keep manually refreshing still applies.

[Mr.Tease]

1 minute ago, pnw4 said:

Yes that makes sense. It's just that some previous posts in this thread suggested that this shortened version of the holding page only appeared when the 60 refreshes per minute limit had been exceeded, which I hadn't, so it got me worried!  

So it seems this holding page was just a re-worded version of last years' holding page and the advice to keep manually refreshing still applies.

Ah, I think they have confused you! There is the genuine holding page which refreshes every 20 seconds, and then what you've confused it with is the fake holding page, which they think you get redirected to if you exceed 60 refreshes per minute (because the see ticket servers would then think you are a cheating refresh programme which are banned)- that one looks exactly the same but isn't actually real- it wouldn't really try gaining you access every 20 seconds, and refreshing it manually wouldn't really be trying to get you onto the sales page, it's a decoy. At least that's what I think they were saying. I could be wrong!

I remember a couple of years ago after the tickets had sold out, one of my browser windows still had a holding page, and I could keep refreshing it and it would stay on the holding page- essentially it wasn't really linked to the sales page otherwise it would have gone to the sold out page like all the others. So I have always suspected that was a decoy page! I could be wrong, but it's made me very paranoid as if I'd stuck with that one during the sale, I would have essentially been wasting my time!

[Smash1984]

I can't decide if it was better or worse this year but would probably go with worse. I know it's down to luck but in previous years I'd spend what seemed like forever getting through to the reg page and entering all the details but once there it was a smooth ride through to payment.

This year I got straight through to the reg page (at 9:03am) but never got any further. Lucky for me the wife got through on her phone on 4G. The payment page crashed so had to go back then forward again (timer was still counting down in the same place which I thought was strange but then don't really undertstand completely how it all works) then finally got confirmation.

 

Same same but different I guess

[pnw4]

9 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

Ah, I think they have confused you! There is the genuine holding page which refreshes every 20 seconds, and then what you've confused it with is the fake holding page, which they think you get redirected to if you exceed 60 refreshes per minute (because the see ticket servers would then think you are a cheating refresh programme which are banned)- that one looks exactly the same but isn't actually real- it wouldn't really try gaining you access every 20 seconds, and refreshing it manually wouldn't really be trying to get you onto the sales page, it's a decoy. At least that's what I think they were saying. I could be wrong!

I remember a couple of years ago after the tickets had sold out, one of my browser windows still had a holding page, and I could keep refreshing it and it would stay on the holding page- essentially it wasn't really linked to the sales page otherwise it would have gone to the sold out page like all the others. So I have always suspected that was a decoy page! I could be wrong, but it's made me very paranoid as if I'd stuck with that one during the sale, I would have essentially been wasting my time!

That sounds very unsportsmanlike!

Did anyone knowingly exceed the 60 rpm on Sunday and if so was there any visual indication they had done so?

[pentura]

12 minutes ago, pnw4 said:

That sounds very unsportsmanlike!

Did anyone knowingly exceed the 60 rpm on Sunday and if so was there any visual indication they had done so?

We discussed this to death over on the "Ticket tips" thread. Still none-the-wiser afterwards

It seems there was no visual indication of being on the 'wilderness' holding page as it was aptly named. I'd say our group definitely exceeded it on Thursday, possibly not yesterday as we were more reserved with the F5'ing. No change from what I could see. Think they intentionally kept it that way so the refresh bots / apps would be locked out.

Who knows though, some reckon it's a red herring, others will do 59 refreshes in the minute - all options seem to give mixed results, some have tickets now, some dont. Luck of the draw at the end of the day! 

Edited October 8, 2018 by pentura

[timbrass]

On 10/6/2018 at 3:53 PM, BigChief said:

So are people suggesting chrome is the wrong browser to be using? I always thought it was pure luck, maybe I’ve been wrong ?

Edge worked for me