There has to be a better way to allocate tickets

[Glasto96]

Just keep refreshing, all there is to it 🤷🏼‍♂️

[gizmoman]

24 minutes ago, Penrhos said:

This year was a shambles. I've done the ticket sales since 2009 and this felt the worst.

 

The main site has always been wobbly, but with the number of people hammering it's hardly surprising. If see actually came out and stated how many sessions/sec they were handling people might cut them some slack.

But once you get to the booking page and 100% once you get to the payment page no site should drop the session and lockout the reg numbers 

 

I work for a major retailer and we've invested in surge protection, offloading & citrix netscalers to protect the site from ddos & sale surge and it works fine, keeps the back end from being overwhelmed. And gives a holding page once the backend gets to 80% load. 

 

Also why are they issuing cookies that effectively kill your chance of getting past the holding page (proved this post sale today as one pc was still showing holding page at 11 even if I quit & relaunched chrome. Only deleting all cookies made the site work correctly).

Yep, I failed today and also had the holding page well after the sale had finished, I suspect it is somehow blocking additional tabs, some tabs were working, some were blocked, they do advice only using one tab per browser, will stick to one in future, the main change this year was the live authorisation of card payments, I predicted this wouldn't go well and I was right! There is actually no need to take payment at the booking stage, as someone else pointed out, they could just issue the booking confirmation and give you 24 hours to make the payment, that way the card payments would be done in an orderly way when the server isn't being bombarded, the very few bookings that didn't get paid would go into the resale.

[mph]

2 minutes ago, Glasto96 said:

Just keep refreshing, all there is to it 🤷🏼‍♂️

This and luck

No luck for me, so resales, but been here before

Some you win some you lose, it's life

Booking page fails ? Bad luck, it's life

We try again in resales 

[Mark Greensmith]

18 minutes ago, drunk pumpkin said:

Do you think it might be conscious choice to not improve the system. All of us want the feeling that we have the ability to get a ticket. If it was perfect it would sell out in 10 minutes would we be happy. I personally need the feeling that I’ve still a chance. 50 minutes in seeing that technology was failing kept me invested. 

Conscious in the fact that upgrading their IT systems would provide no tangible benefit to them. They’ll still sell out.
 

For example (I am bitter not going to lie lol), I was kicked out of the payment page after approving the transaction. All that would’ve happened on a better system would be me getting it instead of whoever else went in and bagged it. Same result essentially for the festival.

 

The whole ticket process needs a bit of a rethink. I think reselling tickets at face value should become a thing - this could be easily done with a dedicated app to avoid touts and allow transferable tickets.

 

I think that in itself would decrease demand - it would move away from “this is my only chance mentality!” and people would shrug and say I’ll buy one nearer the time. Then by the time may/June comes, the casuals who didn’t buy them in October/November wouldn’t even bother anyway. 
 

 

[I am Jon]

11 minutes ago, gizmoman said:

Yep, I failed today and also had the holding page well after the sale had finished, I suspect it is somehow blocking additional tabs, some tabs were working, some were blocked, they do advice only using one tab per browser, will stick to one in future, the main change this year was the live authorisation of card payments, I predicted this wouldn't go well and I was right! There is actually no need to take payment at the booking stage, as someone else pointed out, they could just issue the booking confirmation and give you 24 hours to make the payment, that way the card payments would be done in an orderly way when the server isn't being bombarded, the very few bookings that didn't get paid would go into the resale.

Good point 3D secure 2.0 (stricter verification system via sms, banking app, etc) recently became mandatory for online payments.
 

Probably contributed to the increased payment issues this year. 

[gizmoman]

14 minutes ago, Glasto96 said:

Just keep refreshing, all there is to it 🤷🏼‍♂️

No point refreshing a dead page, you need to know how the system works and what to do at each stage, my big mistake today was not following the advice on the official site, I actually got to the second booking page, confirmation of reg's and was proceeding to the payment page, this took more than 10 mins so when I got there the session had timed out, I then tried to start again. TOS says,

"Please don’t continue to refresh the page more than 10 minutes after entering your details as your access to the page will have expired. You will need to close the browser and start again to gain fresh access to the booking page."

 

So what I should have done is close the browser and started again with a fresh screen, hard to remember all this when you are in panic mode! By not doing so it seems I was then locked out.

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, guypjfreak said:

They should be last on the tix list imo

They are. No-one paying that much money is expected to commit as far in advance as we are. But those tickets are all part of the festival eco-system. They're given to companies that help out in some way with the festival who can then sell them on, or as guest passes for performers. In either case, it's in lieu of the festival paying the actual going rate for the services they provide.

[Penrhos]

8 minutes ago, gizmoman said:

No point refreshing a dead page, you need to know how the system works and what to do at each stage, my big mistake today was not following the advice on the official site, I actually got to the second booking page, confirmation of reg's and was proceeding to the payment page, this took more than 10 mins so when I got there the session had timed out, I then tried to start again. TOS says,

"Please don’t continue to refresh the page more than 10 minutes after entering your details as your access to the page will have expired. You will need to close the browser and start again to gain fresh access to the booking page."

 

So what I should have done is close the browser and started again with a fresh screen, hard to remember all this when you are in panic mode! By not doing so it seems I was then locked out.

The problem with that - and to my cost today is...

The reg numbers are locked and the get the "another person is completing a transaction" message and you can't do anything but wait for the numbers to be released - which for me never happened, even thought I got back to the booking page just before they sold I was greeted by the message "numbers in use" which was a good 15 minutes after I'd got through the first time.

 

So for resale I'll be having two reg numbers so if one gets locked I have a backup.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Penrhos

[Suprefan]

13 minutes ago, Mark Greensmith said:

Conscious in the fact that upgrading their IT systems would provide no tangible benefit to them. They’ll still sell out.
 

For example (I am bitter not going to lie lol), I was kicked out of the payment page after approving the transaction. All that would’ve happened on a better system would be me getting it instead of whoever else went in and bagged it. Same result essentially for the festival.

 

The whole ticket process needs a bit of a rethink. I think reselling tickets at face value should become a thing - this could be easily done with a dedicated app to avoid touts and allow transferable tickets.

 

I think that in itself would decrease demand - it would move away from “this is my only chance mentality!” and people would shrug and say I’ll buy one nearer the time. Then by the time may/June comes, the casuals who didn’t buy them in October/November wouldn’t even bother anyway. 
 

 

I had been pounding the table about a ticket exchange and even charging a small fee to do that and was shot down because apparently when life happens and glasto isnt possible, its fine to leave that ticket unused. Also, just asking for more money is supposedly evil. But as we have seen, there is demand and nobody will care to pay an extra £25 to get a ticket. There doesnt need to be an app either, if theres a waitlist and then its just about being selected to take a persons ticket who puts it on the exchange then thats the other randomness which can happen. You just need to be ready to go if it happens week of. Would likely need a cutoff date for waitlist/exchange tickets. Probably the Monday of the fest. And the ticket would be placed at box office pickup no matter what. Thats another layer of security. I dont think if theres an open exchange that you will have better luck because if its about a ticket popping up on there then youll have somebody with refreshers just checking it constantly and nothing is fair.

[Suprefan]

44 minutes ago, drunk pumpkin said:

Do you think it might be conscious choice to not improve the system. All of us want the feeling that we have the ability to get a ticket. If it was perfect it would sell out in 10 minutes would we be happy. I personally need the feeling that I’ve still a chance. 50 minutes in seeing that technology was failing kept me invested. 

I think they might feel that making some significant changes would create other problems. They cant simulate the traffic to see if a newer system would hold up under the strain. I mean it wouldnt be a bad idea to create a new system and beta test it with real web traffic. Make an announcement that there will a simulated onsale with new features and everyone can participate. You then have it happen and then see whats good and whats not. Also take user feedback. But hey, theyre just lazy.

[efcfanwirral]

8 minutes ago, Suprefan said:

I had been pounding the table about a ticket exchange and even charging a small fee to do that and was shot down because apparently when life happens and glasto isnt possible, its fine to leave that ticket unused. Also, just asking for more money is supposedly evil. But as we have seen, there is demand and nobody will care to pay an extra £25 to get a ticket. There doesnt need to be an app either, if theres a waitlist and then its just about being selected to take a persons ticket who puts it on the exchange then thats the other randomness which can happen. You just need to be ready to go if it happens week of. Would likely need a cutoff date for waitlist/exchange tickets. Probably the Monday of the fest. And the ticket would be placed at box office pickup no matter what. Thats another layer of security. I dont think if theres an open exchange that you will have better luck because if its about a ticket popping up on there then youll have somebody with refreshers just checking it constantly and nothing is fair.

I would 100% be willing to keep the time off sorted and take on a ticket a week before. There's no reason why not to offer it. Shit happens and it's a lot of money, plus there are people genuinely gutted they can't go who'd take on the ticket when these things happen. Win win all round if there's a (very simple) system to allow it 

[gizmoman]

10 minutes ago, Penrhos said:

The problem with that - and to my cost today is...

The reg numbers are locked and the get the "another person is completing a transaction" message and you can't do anything but wait for the numbers to be released - which for me never happened, even thought I got back to the booking page just before they sold I was greeted by the message "numbers in use" which was a good 15 minutes after I'd got through the first time.

 

So for resale I'll be having two reg numbers so if one gets locked I have a backup.

That's one tip I'll be saving, once registration reopens, they'll be getting a new one from me.

[Mark Greensmith]

52 minutes ago, Suprefan said:

I had been pounding the table about a ticket exchange and even charging a small fee to do that and was shot down because apparently when life happens and glasto isnt possible, its fine to leave that ticket unused. Also, just asking for more money is supposedly evil. But as we have seen, there is demand and nobody will care to pay an extra £25 to get a ticket. There doesnt need to be an app either, if theres a waitlist and then its just about being selected to take a persons ticket who puts it on the exchange then thats the other randomness which can happen. You just need to be ready to go if it happens week of. Would likely need a cutoff date for waitlist/exchange tickets. Probably the Monday of the fest. And the ticket would be placed at box office pickup no matter what. Thats another layer of security. I dont think if theres an open exchange that you will have better luck because if its about a ticket popping up on there then youll have somebody with refreshers just checking it constantly and nothing is fair.

Would argue that it is fair. The people refreshing constantly are the most dedicated and get the ticket

 

Problem that would arise though would be bots and potential software to do the process automatically. It won’t be fool proof, but it could done. 

[clarkete]

1 hour ago, Mark Greensmith said:

Conscious in the fact that upgrading their IT systems would provide no tangible benefit to them. They’ll still sell out.
 

For example (I am bitter not going to lie lol), I was kicked out of the payment page after approving the transaction. All that would’ve happened on a better system would be me getting it instead of whoever else went in and bagged it. Same result essentially for the festival.

 

The whole ticket process needs a bit of a rethink. I think reselling tickets at face value should become a thing - this could be easily done with a dedicated app to avoid touts and allow transferable tickets.

 

I think that in itself would decrease demand - it would move away from “this is my only chance mentality!” and people would shrug and say I’ll buy one nearer the time. Then by the time may/June comes, the casuals who didn’t buy them in October/November wouldn’t even bother anyway. 
 

 

I don't understand your rationale. The demand outstrips supply and always will atm, which means one way or another many disappointed buyers. 

The only thing currently that prevents profiteering is registered details on the ticket - hence no peer to peer sales and for them easier management via a finite quantity of sales. 

[Suprefan]

5 hours ago, Mark Greensmith said:

Would argue that it is fair. The people refreshing constantly are the most dedicated and get the ticket

 

Problem that would arise though would be bots and potential software to do the process automatically. It won’t be fool proof, but it could done. 

Thats why a randomized waitlist would seem better than an open exchange system. Although geography might become a factor also and there might have to be considerations taken. Then again, if youre going to sign up for a waitlist you either live domestically or were going to plan a trip to be around the country at the time. I dont think its going to be a good thing if you live in japan and get an email the week before saying youve gotten a ticket and you cant go.

The waitlist also would not even open up until after the resale happens either. So sometime in mid april. Which still leaves 2 months for anyone that wants to hope they can go. I mean we've seen Worthy View and Sticklinch spots open up at random times so cancellations and such are very much a real thing.

But yeah, randomized waitlist, you will be notified if youve been selected and then have a window of say 48 hours to confirm you can do it and purchase. If not, it goes to somebody else. Ive seen waitlists where they just automatically charge you and it creates issues. So might as well add this layer to make sure it yet again doesnt go to waste.

[Dave_c]

The current system has its flaws but I personally think it's the best way to do it. Failed payments is definitely something they need to fix going forward, which seems to have gotten worse with having to approve the transaction with your bank. I've never had any failed payments before or after this change (first direct) so it's either bank related or luck.

I'd hate a ballot system, having absolutely no influence on whether you get one or not is worse than failing in the sale where you at least have some influence on your success.

Deep down we all love the chaos of it all.

[goonerben]

I don't think there are any compelling alternatives, which are THAT obviously better than the current way.  And of course everybody is in favour of the system that generally gives them the best chance of getting what they want.

Ballot - no thanks - aren't there 2m+ people registered? 

Smaller groups - even going down to 4 would (for example) mean that a family of 5 couldn't go.

What I DO think could absolutely have been improved yesterday, was the tech infrastructure once people got onto the site.  All the stories of payments failing etc - very poor.  You don't get to have a holding page which only lets a specifed number of people into the booking area, then get to make excuses about overcapacity once inside!  They control the "gate" (and how many people can get through it) - so if the "field" is too crowded, they've only themselves to blame!

[Jose Pose]

I’m always bewildered by the yearly argument the sale isn’t fair or should be done a different way. 112k tickets were sold yesterday, but most people don’t buy 1 ticket, most probably buy the full 6, so based on an average of 5 being bought that’s only 22400 opportunities to get through and buy tickets.

Demand massively outstrips supply it’s as simple as that, but thankfully the festival are quite kind and have created a sale environment that enables you to maximise your chances and improve your odds of getting one of those circa 22400 opportunities.

All it requires to be able to take advantage of this is some common sense and a bit of organisation. Even then you might not get a ticket such is the nature of trying to buy something that has maybe four or five times the amount of people competing for it than is available.

I think the people moaning on Twitter who want a ballot are lashing out and essentially want to ruin things for everyone, rather than looking at themselves for a solution. Either that or it’s entitlement, or a combination of that and entitlement, if they truly believe a ballot would give them a better chance.

[t0paz]

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess the % of people calling for a ballot who also have a ticket is roughly 0.

 

[Cream Soda]

3 hours ago, Dave_c said:

The current system has its flaws but I personally think it's the best way to do it. Failed payments is definitely something they need to fix going forward, which seems to have gotten worse with having to approve the transaction with your bank. I've never had any failed payments before or after this change (first direct) so it's either bank related or luck.

I'd hate a ballot system, having absolutely no influence on whether you get one or not is worse than failing in the sale where you at least have some influence on your success.

Deep down we all love the chaos of it all.

I agree, there is no fairer way. Its down to luck and you can maximise your chances with dedication and organisation. It amazes me how many people are on Facebook moaning about how they can't get through DURING the sale. Get off Facebook til afterwards and focus on the task and maybe you'll stand a better chance of getting a ticket! Its proven that dedication pays off and that seems the fairest way to me.  

[Leyrulion]

The only way to have demand not out strip supply would be to charge £1,000 for the tickets. Until then it's probably the fairest way so far, although they could do with making it a better user experience. 

[DeanoL]

Fair should mean everyone has an equal chance. They don't. A fair system would be a major downer for anyone more organised than the average person. 

The current system rewards a degree of effort, but still has luck. It's not a fair system, but it's biased in a good way.

This is the 15th festival in a row I've been lucky enough to get tickets for, every time in the main sale - no resale, no volunteering, no working the festival. I don't always get through myself, but we've never had more than two groups trying (12 people), and it's only once or twice our tickets were secured by someone in the other group.

That's a ridiculous amount of luck, and for at least the last 7 festivals, I put it down entirely to luck. I go into every sale assuming my luck will run out and I won't get tickets this year. I certainly wouldn't complain if I didn't. 

[gfa]

14 hours ago, Mark Greensmith said:

Conscious in the fact that upgrading their IT systems would provide no tangible benefit to them. They’ll still sell out.
 

For example (I am bitter not going to lie lol), I was kicked out of the payment page after approving the transaction. All that would’ve happened on a better system would be me getting it instead of whoever else went in and bagged it. Same result essentially for the festival.

 

The whole ticket process needs a bit of a rethink. I think reselling tickets at face value should become a thing - this could be easily done with a dedicated app to avoid touts and allow transferable tickets.

 

I think that in itself would decrease demand - it would move away from “this is my only chance mentality!” and people would shrug and say I’ll buy one nearer the time. Then by the time may/June comes, the casuals who didn’t buy them in October/November wouldn’t even bother anyway. 
 

 

How would you do this? If it was public like twickets then the tickets would go instantly and it would just be a nightmare. balloted waiting list maybe? If it was private then you'd just get a black market where people would sell the transfer link with a markup

[JoeSchmo]

I don't think it's so much as the way tickets are sold but the provider. See Tickets is just not fit for purpose. 

[Crazyfool01]

9 minutes ago, JoeSchmo said:

I don't think it's so much as the way tickets are sold but the provider. See Tickets is just not fit for purpose. 

But who is ? The only real alternative is ticket master isn’t it ?