There has to be a better way to allocate tickets

[The Nal]

15 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.

That would cost an enormous amount of money for something they do for an hour every 4 out of 5 years.

Not sure theres another situation like it really with 2 or 3 milion people all refreshing a website every 2 seconds on multiple devices.  

[leon3574]

Me and my group of 18 never got a sniff yesterday , 2nd one in over 15 years. I do think this is the fairest way to do it and I understand that the system is going to crash at certain parts of the process ( reg page payment page etc ) which happened to us twice yesterday . The really frustrating thing which I think needs to be looked at is one of our Guys was stuck on the Reg page for ages and another of our Guys got in to the reg page but because Guy 1 had frozen with the timer spinning round guy 2 got told that another purchase was in place for said Reg numbers, even though they were not even on the payment page or put any details etc in . Surely you should be able enter Reg numbers on another browser or another pc right up until the purchase gone through , I understand they should perhaps freeze  your reg no on payment page so you don't get billed twice , but not the reg page . Resale in April it is . 

[faymondo]

The payments failing problem was because new regulations RE online shopping had not been updated by Seetickets.

My payment was declined at 09:25:20 am according to my bank for the above reason.

[thrillhouse188]

Been mentioned in this thread already, but while See aren’t perfect there’s no obvious better alternative. Ballot is nice in theory but makes group buying difficult, and I don’t fancy having the same chance as people who’d otherwise give up after a few mins of refreshing to moan on twitter. Ticketmaster can jog on, unless we want dynamic prices. Queueing to buy in stores might be fairer, but disadvantages internationals and could be abused more easily. Tech issues aside the current system is probably best. 

[topmarksbri]

3 minutes ago, thrillhouse188 said:

but disadvantages internationals

Also likely those at bottom end of society who couldn't easily queue for hours on end/work shifts.

[leon3574]

4 minutes ago, thrillhouse188 said:

Been mentioned in this thread already, but while See aren’t perfect there’s no obvious better alternative. Ballot is nice in theory but makes group buying difficult, and I don’t fancy having the same chance as people who’d otherwise give up after a few mins of refreshing to moan on twitter. Ticketmaster can jog on, unless we want dynamic prices. Queueing to buy in stores might be fairer, but disadvantages internationals and could be abused more easily. Tech issues aside the current system is probably best. 

Oh the good old days like in the 90s when you just walked into Andy's Records and brought a ticket over the counter 

[timeforheroes]

Thr current system favours larger groups, as it's more people trying. And more exponentially as a couple who ask all their friends is still less than 6+ who do the same. Some of those large groups still fail, supply/demand and all that but they do have a better chance.

Whether by ballot or other means it would be interesting to see how protecting smaller groups would be. Some people don't have large circles and also deserve to go to the festival. It's pot luck but the odds aren't stacked evenly currently.

*full disclosure I got mine this year, I've held this view in successful and unsuccessful years.

[thrillhouse188]

3 minutes ago, topmarksbri said:

Also likely those at bottom end of society who couldn't easily queue for hours on end/work shifts.

Good point! 

[thrillhouse188]

1 minute ago, leon3574 said:

Oh the good old days like in the 90s when you just walked into Andy's Records and brought a ticket over the counter 

It’s amusing, I’m sure half of the people moaning on twitter would be horrified at the idea of having to physically queue for a ticket, almost as if the only ‘fair’ system is one that guarantees them entry 

[Crazyfool01]

2 minutes ago, timeforheroes said:

Thr current system favours larger groups, as it's more people trying. And more exponentially as a couple who ask all their friends is still less than 6+ who do the same. Some of those large groups still fail, supply/demand and all that but they do have a better chance.

Whether by ballot or other means it would be interesting to see how protecting smaller groups would be. Some people don't have large circles and also deserve to go to the festival. It's pot luck but the odds aren't stacked evenly currently.

*full disclosure I got mine this year, I've held this view in successful and unsuccessful years.

I’ve seen some great success rate for groups and some pretty dire ones … it depends on how well setup and organised they are … that said of course it’s an advantage although even being part of one I got my tickets for bus and mates who were in another 6 in the main  sale . So ultimately without the big group I would have got them this time 

[fightoffyour]

Few thoughts/comments:

1. I seriously doubt there are 4 or 5 times the amount of people trying than available tickets. I'd guess maybe 50% or 100% more, but most of the problems are that most people are using multiple devices and browsers.

2. How about each reg gets a single log in session (no idea about the technical possibilities of this), create a password with your registration, another log in logs you out of all sessions.

Would require some admin to stop dupe accounts and this wouldn't be totally unavoidable, but it would put most people off and then the infrastructure would easily handle ticket day.

3. For a laugh, don't state that this is what happens, but anyone who doesn't refresh before 20 seconds just gets through automatically.

4. Once you're on the reg page, you should be close to guaranteed a ticket if there are enough available. At least, you shouldn't still face crashing or failed payment processing (unless your bank fucks you).

5. Everyone should be able to reach the holding page, and just refresh away.

[Freddyflintstonree]

10 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

2. How about each reg gets a single log in session (no idea about the technical possibilities of this), create a password with your registration, another log in logs you out of all sessions.

This makes sense to me. 

[Old_Johno]

3 hours ago, goonerben said:

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!

Smaller groups would be fine if they had teen tickets for 13-17 yr olds not included in the 4 person cap. That way families are fine but a wider variety of adult groups can get through 

[incident]

51 minutes ago, faymondo said:

The payments failing problem was because new regulations RE online shopping had not been updated by Seetickets.

My payment was declined at 09:25:20 am according to my bank for the above reason.

No, they definitely have implemented SCA - but it just fell over, a lot, on that step presumably due to the massively increased overhead that it creates. They *might* have turned it off towards the end but that's unclear.

[faymondo]

9 minutes ago, incident said:

No, they definitely have implemented SCA - but it just fell over, a lot, on that step presumably due to the massively increased overhead that it creates. They *might* have turned it off towards the end but that's unclear.

 

[Tranquility of Solitude]

12 minutes ago, incident said:

They *might* have turned it off towards the end but that's unclear.

Suspect they did..... shortly after 10:00. My payment went through, with no 2FA.

[DeanoL]

50 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Few thoughts/comments:

1. I seriously doubt there are 4 or 5 times the amount of people trying than available tickets. I'd guess maybe 50% or 100% more, but most of the problems are that most people are using multiple devices and browsers.

2. How about each reg gets a single log in session (no idea about the technical possibilities of this), create a password with your registration, another log in logs you out of all sessions.

Would require some admin to stop dupe accounts and this wouldn't be totally unavoidable, but it would put most people off and then the infrastructure would easily handle ticket day.

3. For a laugh, don't state that this is what happens, but anyone who doesn't refresh before 20 seconds just gets through automatically.

4. Once you're on the reg page, you should be close to guaranteed a ticket if there are enough available. At least, you shouldn't still face crashing or failed payment processing (unless your bank fucks you).

5. Everyone should be able to reach the holding page, and just refresh away.

The problem is if they lack the resources to actually let people book tickets, they'd also lack the resources to let people actually login and verify themselves in the first place. So you'd create the choke point, just at the login screen.

[DeanoL]

On the other hand, if you had one login per group of people (and your group could be any size, set up beforehand) then you'd solve the question around giving equal chances to smaller groups that @timeforheroes mentioned.

[topmarksbri]

I really appreciate the amount of effort and thought that goes into solving a problem the festival doesn't think it has

[Xeph1995]

I actually quite like the current system tbh, the chaos is part of the experience for me tbh. 

Edited November 7, 2022 by Xeph1995

[Nestacres]

There are over 2 million people regsitered and 140,000 tickets go on sale. No website will cope with that demand seamlessly even it was 50% of the people who tried - with multiple browsers/tabs etc. This makes it the biggest single ticket event in the UK other than Wimbledon I think which does have a ballot, and I have managed to get a ticket once in 25 years (cant be bothered to queue). I think the ticket process does pretty well considering but the card verification was defeiniley as issue and makes the process a lot longer and prone to probelms. 

[Jose Pose]

If you really, really love Glastonbury or really really want to go then the current system favours you, but the advantages are available to everyone. If you don’t take advantage of them then you simply don’t want to go as much as you say or believe you do. That’s why the current system is as perfect as you could get it.

[Crazyfool01]

Just now, Nestacres said:

There are over 2 million people regsitered and 140,000 tickets go on sale. No website will cope with that demand seamlessly even it was 50% of the people who tried - with multiple browsers/tabs etc. This makes it the biggest single ticket event in the UK other than Wimbledon I think which does have a ballot, and I have managed to get a ticket once in 25 years (cant be bothered to queue). I think the ticket process does pretty well considering but the card verification was defeiniley as issue and makes the process a lot longer and prone to probelms. 

Erm swear it’s 1 million registrations ? But agree 

[incident]

47 minutes ago, faymondo said:

 

Failing doesn't mean not implemented.

[timeforheroes]

10 minutes ago, Jose Pose said:

If you really, really love Glastonbury or really really want to go then the current system favours you, but the advantages are available to everyone. If you don’t take advantage of them then you simply don’t want to go as much as you say or believe you do. That’s why the current system is as perfect as you could get it.

It favours a certain demographic, of which I admit I am in. But that doesn't mean I want it more cos I can call upon more people to try.