Being kicked out - avoidable or not??

[airwaves]

Having had time to reflect on my own personal experience of 2019 Ticket Day - I was in South Africa on holiday trying by Samsung Tab 6 on hotel WiFi, got through to payment page twice but kicked out before payment processed, ended up with nothing; the 4 others in my group back in the UK between them never got past holding page - it is also clear from various posts on various threads (and FB and Twitter ) that many, many people had their hopes raised by getting to registration details pages and beyond, many, like me, all the way to 'buy tickets', only to get kicked out? 

So, what are the thoughts and learning points before April resale?

Was it our fault? Could WE have done something different to ensure not getting kicked out? Could our choice of payment card have made a difference? 

Was it SEE's fault? Was there a glitch in their programmes somewhere? Did they not put in enough capacity at critical parts of the chain? Should the 'time out' period have been greater than 6 minute given the volume of traffic? 

Was the 'fault' somewhere in the SEE to banks link?

If I hadn't got through at all, then ok - that's the luck of the draw so to say. But to have tickets in my hand,  sort off, only to have them snatched away really really pissed me off!

[paulshane]

nothing you can do, it's just server load from literally thousands of other people.

 

However, in previous experience, once i've got to the ticket page, it appeared that I was then on a ringfences processinbg server that wasn't also being hammered, so hassle free. It -seems- that this year the load balancing was bleeding over onto the payment servers too, resulting in 'page cannot be displayed' on hitting submit etc.

 

 

[wetflame]

I had the same issue - got through to the registrations page and then the next page wouldn't load. Luckily some friends got through without issue. I don't think that it's avoidable, but at least if you get to that stage you can usually click on the back button to get back to the page and try again. Didn't help us when we did it though!

[henry bear]

I thought this thread was going to be about how to avoid being kicked out of the festival...

[stuartbert two hats]

It's entirely See's fault.

[Brave Sir Robin]

Particularly irritating that that 'Your tickets are being held' 6 minute timer should come up, putting the onus on you to get moving, only for them to drop your session. The worst stories I've seen are those people whose registrations were blocked - for the entire sale - after a failed attempt to purchase.

See always get a kicking on here after the main sale but this time it does seem more deserved than usual.

[phillyfaddle]

I had exactly the same issues this year that I had for the 2013 sale i.e. could not get beyond "Buy". Thought See'd sorted it all out once you were 'in' the booking system, as for 14, 15, 16 & 17 the transactions were generally smooth. Friends who actually bought tickets this year (including mine!) had a hassle-free experience once they'd got through to the Add Registrations page. So thought it must be our non-fibre BT broadband causing the problems. But maybe not.

[Garrett_Salas]

Nope. It's like shouting at the weather really.

There's no pattern - so to maximise chances I'd say just go back to basics:

• Hit f5 as regularly as possible without going over 60 per minute;
• Judge whether having an extra device would increase the numbers of refreshes or just hinder;
• Get as many people trying for you as possible; and,
• Have all the details ready to enter.

 

[glastolover19]

18 minutes ago, airwaves said:

Having had time to reflect on my own personal experience of 2019 Ticket Day - I was in South Africa on holiday trying by Samsung Tab 6 on hotel WiFi, got through to payment page twice but kicked out before payment processed, ended up with nothing; the 4 others in my group back in the UK between them never got past holding page - it is also clear from various posts on various threads (and FB and Twitter ) that many, many people had their hopes raised by getting to registration details pages and beyond, many, like me, all the way to 'buy tickets', only to get kicked out? 

So, what are the thoughts and learning points before April resale?

Was it our fault? Could WE have done something different to ensure not getting kicked out? Could our choice of payment card have made a difference? 

Was it SEE's fault? Was there a glitch in their programmes somewhere? Did they not put in enough capacity at critical parts of the chain? Should the 'time out' period have been greater than 6 minute given the volume of traffic? 

Was the 'fault' somewhere in the SEE to banks link?

If I hadn't got through at all, then ok - that's the luck of the draw so to say. But to have tickets in my hand,  sort off, only to have them snatched away really really pissed me off!

I said it in a previous post and got a ton of sh!t for it but I do think using multiple devices is a big problem and heavily overloads the system and caused problems

[Peroni]

Were people being "kicked out" completely and not able to rectify using the press back then resubmit? 

I must say in all the sales I have done, once I have been in the booking path, I haven't lost a session, I had to go back and forth a few times, vs a straightforward load at stage - this must be so frustrating to experience

We did have some people that were having issues trying to buy for the same group.  At the time, two people were in and were blocking each other.  one cleared out the reg numbers and reset the page allowing the other person to book....

[eFestivals]

ultimately it's just another version of not-getting-tickets, which happened to many others who got less of a sniff of getting tickets.

[CaledonianGonzo]

And therefore anyone who was successful has to be thankful for all the people kicked out of the booking / payment pages otherwise they might not have had a sniff themselves.

[FuzzyDunlop]

4 minutes ago, Peroni said:

Were people being "kicked out" completely and not able to rectify using the press back then resubmit? 

I must say in all the sales I have done, once I have been in the booking path, I haven't lost a session, I had to go back and forth a few times, vs a straightforward load at stage - this must be so frustrating to experience

We did have some people that were having issues trying to buy for the same group.  At the time, two people were in and were blocking each other.  one cleared out the reg numbers and reset the page allowing the other person to book....

It kicked me out (page unavailable) after entering reg numbers. Pressed back. This happened for a good 3 or 4 mins.... then it bounced me through.

[Rose-Colored Boy]

Do Coachella have these sort of problems with their equally (if not more) manic sale or is it just a Glastonbury thing? Food for thought.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

2 minutes ago, glastolover19 said:

I said it in a previous post and got a ton of sh!t for it but I do think using multiple devices is a big problem and heavily overloads the system and caused problems

Of course it does, but then most people aren’t going to just stick to one device when they know everybody else will be using as many as possible. It’s a a self fulfilling prophecy, but as an individual if you just stick to one device you’ll still have all the problems of the extra traffic everyone else is creating and less chance yourself.

I’m not techie at all, but all the payment issues confuse me. In my non techie mind the way I see the system working is that you’ve got literally millions of people trying to get through on the see tickets link, which is why people get white screens etc. Nothing can be done about this as this is the first line of the process.

You've then got people refreshing the holding page (but nowhere near as many as are/were trying to access the see tickets link) And you can only get through to a booking page when one becomes free.

What I don’t get is I would’ve thought that there would only ever be enough slots opened up that the system could actually cope with, these people would be let through to another server or system to process their payment, this should then be unaffected by all the traffic on the holding page and trying to access the see tickets link.

I sort of think of it like having an angry mob knocking on my door, I only open the door and let in however many I can cope with at a time then shut it again, what happens in the house is not affected by the growing number of people outside banging on the door.

But obviously it can’t be as straightforward as that?

 

 

 

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

Do Coachella have these sort of problems with their equally (if not more) manic sale or is it just a Glastonbury thing? Food for thought.

I suspect part of why it ends up as it does is a cost issue. Michael has been tough on See keeping their booking fees down, so that probably impacts ito the service they provide as a result.

[Pinhead]

Costs for the system must be bugger all now though since they're on AWS and only run a temporary system at high capacity for a short time which works out pretty cost effectively I should think compared to their original in house system.

[glastolover19]

4 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Of course it does, but then most people aren’t going to just stick to one device when they know everybody else will be using as many as possible. It’s a a self fulfilling prophecy, but as an individual if you just stick to one device you’ll still have all the problems of the extra traffic everyone else is creating and less chance yourself.

I’m not techie at all, but all the payment issues confuse me. In my non techie mind the way I see the system working is that you’ve got literally millions of people trying to get through on the see tickets link, which is why people get white screens etc. Nothing can be done about this as this is the first line of the process.

You've then got people refreshing the holding page (but nowhere near as many as are/were trying to access the see tickets link) And you can only get through to a booking page when one becomes free.

What I don’t get is I would’ve thought that there would only ever be enough slots opened up that the system could actually cope with, these people would be let through to another server or system to process their payment, this should then be unaffected by all the traffic on the holding page and trying to access the see tickets link.

I sort of think of it like having an angry mob knocking on my door, I only open the door and let in however many I can cope with at a time then shut it again, what happens in the house is not affected by the growing number of people outside banging on the door.

But obviously it can’t be as straightforward as that?

 

 

 

Yeah I don't expect the multiple devices to stop being used but I just wish folks would understand that using 5-6devices each really drowns the system especially if you got 100000+ people doing it and it crashes everything up

[t0paz]

It’s 100% cost. Even if there were 300k people trying with 5 devices each it wouldn’t compare with what Facebook handles all day every day seamlessly.

why would they pay a fortune for more server capacity though? It’s an imperfect system but it is as fair as they can make it.

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

Costs for the system must be bugger all now though since they're on AWS and only run a temporary system at high capacity for a short time which works out pretty cost effectively I should think compared to their original in house system.

as a user of aws myself, it very definitely isn't cheap. Bang for buck is way down on what i pay for my main server.

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, t0paz said:

why would they pay a fortune for more server capacity though? It’s an imperfect system but it is as fair as they can make it.

yup, exactly.

And at the end of the day, from their end, it's about the tickets being sold - which happens at any speed.

Edited October 10, 2018 by eFestivals

[Rose-Colored Boy]

4 minutes ago, t0paz said:

It is as fair as they can make it

It isn't, but there are enough threads about that  

[slash's hat]

21 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

And therefore anyone who was successful has to be thankful for all the people kicked out of the booking / payment pages otherwise they might not have had a sniff themselves.

That's probably how I had success after the sold out message came up. I had got to reg stage (at 9.25)and hit proceed, but didn t get payment page for several minutes after sold out. Presumably other tickets went back in the pot.

[glastolover19]

6 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

It isn't, but there are enough threads about that  

Totally agree. See even after our little debate earlier we can find a common ground? I'll still get yer that cider?

[Pinhead]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

as a user of aws myself, it very definitely isn't cheap. Bang for buck is way down on what i pay for my main server.

Yeah but you're up all the time - see rents the s3 buckets for the brief duration of the sale then shuts them down?