Record number of people trying .

[stuartbert two hats]

The system is plenty fair (I would say that, my hi-tech friends meant I got a ticket!), but I do wish that once you got through to entering your reg details, the bloody thing actually worked.  I'm quite happy with that meaning that fewer people actually got through to the reg page, but I'd love it if getting past the "queue" pages plenty of time before it sold out meant you're going to get some tickets.  Not that you've merely got past one set of massive refreshes to hit another.

[eFestivals]

17 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

The system is plenty fair

I pretty much agree with that*, but the idea of 'fair' is very subjective.

(* the system should at least try to support every request with the busy page, which it fell well-short of this year)

[thewayiam]

2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

I pretty much agree with that*, but the idea of 'fair' is very subjective.

(* the system should at least try to support every request with the busy page, which it fell well-short of this year)

I'd agree with that, every person should at least have been able to continuously refresh the holiday page.

Similarly, not that it is your fault, but I expected efestivals to hold up as well.

[Gnomicide]

2 hours ago, Penrhos said:

Perhaps if we post more pictures of 2016 it might put off the newbies.

As a sciatica suffer it nearly finished me off....

 

I've spotted 5 so far:

Different flag
Green welly socks instead of blue
Person with no legs, middle right
Pink poncho
Extra mud hole bottom left (that last one was hard)

[Amy Lawn]

24 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

I would say that, my hi-tech friends meant I got a ticket!

Can you expand upon this ominous statement? Nothing nefarious I trust.

[stuartbert two hats]

3 minutes ago, GETOFFAMYLAWN said:

Can you expand upon this ominous statement? Nothing nefarious I trust.

Nothing nefarious. Just super organised groups en masse, like most of us on here - the average eFester is still more organised and tech savvy than your average bear I suspect.

[Tyonks]

I didn't get a ticket this year but I can honestly say I can't see any way they could make the system fairer than it already it. Only thing that needs drastically improving is that if you get to the page to put in your details, the site doesn't crash. Never happened to me, but if it did I think I would have an aneurysm.

[eFestivals]

8 minutes ago, thewayiam said:

Similarly, not that it is your fault, but I expected efestivals to hold up as well.

I only get to find out where the weak points in the new system are when they break.

The main problem the other day was 'too many connections' because it hit the limit for the connections. When I get a moment I'll be increasing that limit, so next time that won't happen (at the same limit, anyway).

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, Tyonks said:

I didn't get a ticket this year but I can honestly say I can't see any way they could make the system fairer than it already it. Only thing that needs drastically improving is that if you get to the page to put in your details, the site doesn't crash. Never happened to me, but if it did I think I would have an aneurysm.

yeah, there's clearly some improvements they could make to the implementation, but the basic structure of the system is about right I'd say. 

But, I guess, they have a similar problem with occasional peak loads as I do, and that's predicting what's needed to cover them - which can be hard, particularly when various bits of the system might be changing all the time (just due to periodical renewal-upgrades, etc), and you can only guess at what the interest might be.

[HotChipWillBreakYourLegs]

It doesn't feel very fair when we got to enter our card details and then got kicked out.  Happened to lots of others I suppose.

 

Gutting being so close yet so far!

[Amy Lawn]

9 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Nothing nefarious. Just super organised groups en masse, like most of us on here - the average eFester is still more organised and tech savvy than your average bear I suspect.

Ah sorry, got you. I really don't think we do have any edge anymore though, social media kids find all this stuff second nature I reckon.

[bennyhana22]

2 hours ago, Quark said:

Control entry to the ticket ballot with the following questions:

1. What is the significance of this?

2. You're on your way to see Ed Sheeran perform a "secret set" but you come across a one-armed Slovakian bagpipe player on a unicycle performing the score from Withnail & I on one of the risers.  Do you stay and watch or carry on to see Ed?

3. Your favourite act is headlining the Pyramid stage, but there is literally nothing on for the entire day until that point about which you give a rat's ass.  Do you camp out at the front of the stage for the day of complete boredom to ensure a prime spot for their set?

4. Do you think the T&C field should be replaced with a Nandos and some big screens to show sporting events?

5. What is this for?

6. You see a Z-list celeb from *insert tv show du jour here* while engaged in a deep conversation with your group of friends about the relative merits of your next choice of stage / area / recreational substance.  Do you run over and get a selfie with them or continue to argue over Parquet Courts vs dropping acid?

7. What is the locking hook on the back of a long drop door actually for?

8. After securing your ticket on T-Day you find that none of the Pyramid headliners particularly appeal to you.  Do you return your ticket?

9. What is 9?

Done and dusted.

Nothing short of genius, @Quark, made even more enjoyable by realising almost immediately that I know all the answers like they were branded into my soul.

I am Worthy.

Ben

[dingbat2]

I don't think anyone wants a truly fair way to get tickets. That would probably mean a deli-counter type ticket system. You register, then you get allocated the next registration number in a sequence. GFL then sends out invites to reg numbers 1-138000 inviting them to buy tickets. If you buy a ticket then you go to the back of the queue again and are given the next registration number in the sequence, The next year registrations 138001 to 276000 get invites to buy tickets, and so on (ignoring the issues with duplicate registrations). That way it would guarantee  you a ticket every x years (whatever x is) but couldn't get a ticket every year. But it would surely be fair?

The idea would destroy my interest in the festival, i couldn't face the idea of only be able to go every few years. it would probably destroy the festival as well because its the mix of regulars and newbs who give the festival its unique atmosphere

I don't think anyone on these boards really wants a truly fair system for tickets (neither would GFL I suspect) - most of us want to go every year don't we, which isn't fair to others

[Quark]

21 minutes ago, bennyhana22 said:

Nothing short of genius, @Quark, made even more enjoyable by realising almost immediately that I know all the answers like they were branded into my soul.

I am Worthy.

Ben

Despite having made it up during a dull afternoon at work, I now really want to see that bagpipe player...

[Tyonks]

54 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

yeah, there's clearly some improvements they could make to the implementation, but the basic structure of the system is about right I'd say. 

But, I guess, they have a similar problem with occasional peak loads as I do, and that's predicting what's needed to cover them - which can be hard, particularly when various bits of the system might be changing all the time (just due to periodical renewal-upgrades, etc), and you can only guess at what the interest might be.

Yea I think overall it's impossible to to be 100% particuarly when demand is so high. 

[rubenz]

I know most of it is down to luck ( I have been lucky enough to get tickets for the last 10 years in a row.

It does puzzle me a bit when you see people on Twitter/ Facebook etc moaning about never getting tickets despite trying every year. I'm sure some people go on the site and think they are sat in a queue or something. There is an element of having a decent technique when hitting the sale and having the discipline to refresh repeatedly for 30 mins with no distractions. 

I appreciate I'm saying this from the position of never having failed to get tickets bit i still think many are not as clued up as your average efester and need some ticket day training!

Edited October 8, 2018 by rubenz

[incident]

1 hour ago, dingbat2 said:

I don't think anyone wants a truly fair way to get tickets.

Or, to say the same thing another way, I don't think anyone can agree on the definition of a truly fair way.

Someone who wakes up at 9:15 and hits the page once before giving up would argue that the current system is unfair because it doesn't give everyone an equal chance.

Someone who's ready 20 minutes before and constantly hitting the site would argue the exact opposite for the exact same reason.

[dingbat2]

2 minutes ago, incident said:

Or, to say the same thing another way, I don't think anyone can agree on the definition of a truly fair way.

Someone who wakes up at 9:15 and hits the page once before giving up would argue that the current system is unfair because it doesn't give everyone an equal chance.

Someone who's ready 20 minutes before and constantly hitting the site would argue the exact opposite for the exact same reason.

Yep, it depends on whether you think people who genuinely want it more deserve a better chance of getting tickets than the rest

[CeriG]

Managed to secure 18/24

around 8 of those were old timers. Rest were some that had tried for years with no succes and around 6 newbies.

it was myself that secured all of them after dragging a gang of us into my work.

i purchased 2017 tickets alone.

4 previous years I failed every year but only ever tried from home.

We had various IP addresses, various browsers, 4g etc.... don’t know if that helped 

Edited October 8, 2018 by CeriG

[Garrett_Salas]

First time poster here,

After reading various threads - thought I'd give my opinion. I think the best way to allocate tickets is interesting, from a theoretical point at least, I think in reality the current way works pretty well for the festival and isn't likely to change. 

I saw an idea that I liked in another thread trying to incorporate good causes into it - perhaps add a third october sale after the main where individuals try and get tickets on the condition that they complete x amount of hours for an affiliated charity by April. I think if the hours were substantial enough it'd only be the most determined people. You'd have to find a reasonable number of hours - high enough that it would filter out the less determined but not so arduous that it would put people with minimal leisure time in a hard spot.

My idea would be a lot more controversial... force people to take a personal 'fallow' year after two consecutive festivals. I think at some point there does need to be a change in mindset that going every year is not possible (and even arguably unfair) - the years of people going 10 years consecutively are probably over (assuming everything stays the same) and don't see why going 7 out of 10 years would be unreasonable to anyone. There does seem to be assertions that every newbie is a bucket-lister who only realises on monday morning that their was a sale and that their mate got them one. I think for every one of them, there are four or five that have tried previously but never got lucky and keep trying again each year. For those forced to try something else, there are plenty of other festivals out there depending on your priorities - may even be refreshing to try something else!

*holds shield*

[dingbat2]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

yeah, there's clearly some improvements they could make to the implementation, but the basic structure of the system is about right I'd say. 

But, I guess, they have a similar problem with occasional peak loads as I do, and that's predicting what's needed to cover them - which can be hard, particularly when various bits of the system might be changing all the time (just due to periodical renewal-upgrades, etc), and you can only guess at what the interest might be.

I am not sure if See need to do anything, Glasto must be there most concentrated event (138000 tickets in 1/2 hour + an intermediate registration verification screen) - the registration aspect alone is already going far beyond what they do for any other tickets. Why would/should they spend anymore to smooth out the half hour of madness we experience every year, its not worth the investment. I am not sure about others, but I knew each stage would be problematic yesterday. Getting to the queueing screen > entering the reg details screen > then the payments screen. At no stage was I confident that I had bagged tickets until I saw the final Booking Complete screen. I don't think anyone should be assuming that tickets are in the bag at any point in the process until the final Booking Complete screen appears - theres just too much traffic going on so problems can happen at any point in the process.

[mandolin]

We didn’t manage to get tickets this year despite every effort and learning more about IT in the run up to it than I have ever previously thought was possible.  But I can’t really see a way of making it fairer.  Less frustrating, perhaps, but not fairer.

As a complete aside .... if I manage to find a way to get to Glastonbury 2019, I’ll be the first to start the “Get the one armed Slovakian bag pipe player to Glasto” thread.   

[stuartbert two hats]

34 minutes ago, Garrett_Salas said:

First time poster here,

After reading various threads - thought I'd give my opinion. I think the best way to allocate tickets is interesting, from a theoretical point at least, I think in reality the current way works pretty well for the festival and isn't likely to change. 

I saw an idea that I liked in another thread trying to incorporate good causes into it - perhaps add a third october sale after the main where individuals try and get tickets on the condition that they complete x amount of hours for an affiliated charity by April. I think if the hours were substantial enough it'd only be the most determined people. You'd have to find a reasonable number of hours - high enough that it would filter out the less determined but not so arduous that it would put people with minimal leisure time in a hard spot.

My idea would be a lot more controversial... force people to take a personal 'fallow' year after two consecutive festivals. I think at some point there does need to be a change in mindset that going every year is not possible (and even arguably unfair) - the years of people going 10 years consecutively are probably over (assuming everything stays the same) and don't see why going 7 out of 10 years would be unreasonable to anyone. There does seem to be assertions that every newbie is a bucket-lister who only realises on monday morning that their was a sale and that their mate got them one. I think for every one of them, there are four or five that have tried previously but never got lucky and keep trying again each year. For those forced to try something else, there are plenty of other festivals out there depending on your priorities - may even be refreshing to try something else!

*holds shield*

I have a lot of sympathy for this view. Not to the point that I'm not going to try for tickets, but I certainly don't think regulars deserve to go more than newbies. And agree there's a lot of sneering at newcomers who "don't get the festival".

And there's two ways of looking at this term "bucket list". You can look down your nose and think of it as some box ticking episode to do "just because". Or you can think of something on a bucket list as being a lifelong ambition - something that is held dear - a one in a lifetime experience, rather than "just another festival" like it is for the regulars. Let's give a little more credit to people's motivations, isn't that part of the "Glastonbury spirit"?

[Mr.Tease]

1 hour ago, rubenz said:

I know most of it is down to luck ( I have been lucky enough to get tickets for the last 10 years in a row.

It does puzzle me a bit when you see people on Twitter/ Facebook etc moaning about never getting tickets despite trying every year. I'm sure some people go on the site and think they are sat in a queue or something. There is an element of having a decent technique when hitting the sale and having the discipline to refresh repeatedly for 30 mins with no distractions. 

I appreciate I'm saying this from the position of never having failed to get tickets bit i still think many are not as clued up as your average efester and need some ticket day training!

Not necessarily, the thing with chance and odds are they don’t actually remember what happened last time, so it’s perfectly possible that someone can get tickets every year and someone never. 

[BigChief]

1 hour ago, rubenz said:

There is an element of having a decent technique when hitting the sale and having the discipline to refresh repeatedly for 30 mins with no distractions. 

I appreciate I'm saying this from the position of never having failed to get tickets bit i still think many are not as clued up as your average efester and need some ticket day training!

I don’t agree with this, how can you refresh nothing with discipline for 30 minutes? Some people never even saw the holding page. Personally I had the holding page on three devices and was refreshing in a round robin technique, and saw nothing of the booking page.

It has to be down to luck / numbers of people trying for you, one person can’t press F5 better than the next.

I might need to practice pressing mine for April ?