There has to be a better way to allocate tickets

[eddie_corrigan]

The Ticketmaster queue system is designed to suck your will to get a ticket. I tried for Coldplay tickets in Amsterdam in august. Got in the waiting room 1/2 hour before sale time. Come the on sale time they’res 350,000 in front of me for 120,000 tickets. Coldplay is one thing but I don think I could handle knowing immediately what my chances are of getting a ticket. 

[gfa]

19 minutes ago, D-Low said:

Probably not a very popular opinion but I often think how it would be if they binned off the £50 deposit and making tickets full price in first release (still with the option to cancel if needed later on before resale). I know it would certainly ease up some demand and put a lot of people off.
 

I know a few groups who only bought a ticket for the sake of it and don’t have much Intention of going but the deposit scheme is what lures them in. 

If I wanted to buy 6 Edinburgh coach tickets i'd need 6 x £340 x £140 on my card. £2,880.

it will never happen. Even getting 6 edinburgh tickets with a £50 deposit is over £1k needed.

People binning off tickets helps people on this site, most punters won't try the resale / will have already booked another fest come april or a holiday

Edited November 7, 2022 by gfa

[DeanoL]

11 minutes ago, Jose Pose said:

I think some people who want a Ticketmaster queue type system genuinely think they’re unique in getting up at 9am on a Sunday, and that such a system would reward them for getting up at 9am, in their minds slightly before the other 500k - 1M odd people who would also be doing the same.

Yup. And a queue system basically means you get one shot: is your internet fast enough to connect before enough people at spot on 9am when the server opens.

At least with this system it's just if your request happens to hit the server when there's free capacity. You get many goes at it every minute. Surely it'd far more frustrating if your wifi conked out for ten seconds at spot on 9am and that's why you didn't get tickets.

By having what's essentially 1000s of smaller lotteries every second, any small variances in internet speed and connection stability average themselves out. 

We shouldn't be calling it a queue system. It'd be a "race" system.

[mike46]

There’s no reason why they would, as it would just be hampering See’s/Glasto’s sales, but I would love them to restrict the number of transactions that go through a minute so the sale has to go one for several hours - that way the more determined will be rewarded. 
 

Pie in the Sky stuff that though. Current system is as good as it gets - although there shouldn’t be time outs once someone has put their registration details in 

[Jose Pose]

6 minutes ago, mike46 said:

There’s no reason why they would, as it would just be hampering See’s/Glasto’s sales, but I would love them to restrict the number of transactions that go through a minute so the sale has to go one for several hours - that way the more determined will be rewarded. 
 

Pie in the Sky stuff that though. Current system is as good as it gets - although there shouldn’t be time outs once someone has put their registration details in 

I would personally love that as well, it wouldn’t stop the moaning though, plenty of people would get bored and class it as impossible to get Glastonbury tickets before long. 

[incident]

10 minutes ago, mike46 said:

There’s no reason why they would, as it would just be hampering See’s/Glasto’s sales, but I would love them to restrict the number of transactions that go through a minute so the sale has to go one for several hours - that way the more determined will be rewarded. 
 

Pie in the Sky stuff that though. Current system is as good as it gets - although there shouldn’t be time outs once someone has put their registration details in 

I don't think that's pie in the sky.

The tech problems this year were the worst they've been in quite a while - my educated guess on that is that the system as used wasn't able to cope with the sheer volume of SCA transactions going through it (which will add a huge resource overhead to each sale compared to previous years). If I'm right, then for next year they basically have a straight choice - either invest substantial amounts to beef up capacity further, or reduce the transaction rate so that the server load reduces and the sale can operate without those errors.

[a6l6e6x]

I like the thought of paying in full up front

i don’t like the thought of a ticketmaster queue. I’ve never ever been successful on one of those and ticketmaster are the worst company going for live music fans

[fightoffyour]

11 hours ago, DeanoL said:

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.

Good point, and one I didn’t consider when I (quickly) wrote down a few thoughts.

However, it might still help a little bit because

a) people may be somewhat deterred from trying to reach the login page on multiple devices

b) any extra devices will definitely not be in use once login is successful, whereas now people have multiple still open auto refreshing even when through the reg details page

The suggestion of a group login is interesting, but I’m not sure how I stand on that in principle anyway and regardless, it simply wouldn’t work as different logins would log out another group member in a totally different location unless able to communicate this well.

[Serenefishy]

Maybe bring back a small allocation of tickets reserved to be sold at physical locations, adding a small alternative route to tickets for people without the online hacks?

Actually that's probably a shit idea. Forget it.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Serenefishy

[CaledonianGonzo]

7 hours ago, dotdash79 said:

If it was more then these massive groups would struggle more. 

Massive groups struggle less because of their size. They have better odds.

[Suprefan]

1 hour ago, Serenefishy said:

Maybe bring back a small allocation of tickets reserved to be sold at physical locations, adding a small alternative route to tickets for people without the online hacks?

Actually that's probably a shit idea. Forget it.

They could do this fairly easily and organize it in such a way that its reasonably fair. Still cant have it first come. And you can only buy your  own ticket. Youre not there on behalf of a group because you have to confirm all your information yourself. They could look up your reg info on the database and crosscheck with proper ID. Also, allocate numbers to everyone in line and then make that a lottery. Whatever number gets drawn is who is first in line and then the order follows in sequence of that one. Its either that or you call out numbers and if its within 10 of that you get to buy a ticket. If repeats are called then you keep going til its all sold. I would say you could only do this for maybe 10,000 tickets. Set the sale up at Wembley and everyones hanging out for a day. You do this sale the weekend before Coach packages.

 

if this year they asked everyone to pay up front you def wouldve had a much different outcome to the sale. I mean in the resale they should just allocate other tickets outside of the returns and never let on. Obviously theres been some trickery of extras floating around and its their subtle way of rewarding the relentless types.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Suprefan

[fightoffyour]

I simply don’t believe there are as many people trying for tickets as most seem to think. Not even double the amount that are available.

If the chances of getting a ticket every year are 50% then the probability of success 10 years in a row is (0.50)^10 = 0.1%.

For an 80% chance every year, -0 years of tickets = 10% chance.

I can’t be that lucky, and I doubt I’m the only one on here by a long way. We weren’t even well organised this year, had postcode and reg number fuckups along the way.

[Peroni]

7 hours ago, a6l6e6x said:

I like the thought of paying in full up front

i don’t like the thought of a ticketmaster queue. I’ve never ever been successful on one of those and ticketmaster are the worst company going for live music fans

You used to be able to do this there were two options on T day.  

[Jose Pose]

2 hours ago, fightoffyour said:

I simply don’t believe there are as many people trying for tickets as most seem to think. Not even double the amount that are available.

If the chances of getting a ticket every year are 50% then the probability of success 10 years in a row is (0.50)^10 = 0.1%.

For an 80% chance every year, -0 years of tickets = 10% chance.

I can’t be that lucky, and I doubt I’m the only one on here by a long way. We weren’t even well organised this year, had postcode and reg number fuckups along the way.

112k tickets sold on Sunday, 2.4m registered to buy them. Obviously there will be nowhere near 2.4m trying, but clearly there will be a lot more than 10% (double 112k) of registered people trying for tickets. 

[Alvoram]

34 minutes ago, Jose Pose said:

112k tickets sold on Sunday, 2.4m registered to buy them. Obviously there will be nowhere near 2.4m trying, but clearly there will be a lot more than 10% (double 112k) of registered people trying for tickets. 

Well if every group of 6 people has all 6 trying, on an average of 2 or 3 devices, plus say, on average, a couple of friends trying for them on 2 or 3 devices. that's up to 24 devices per group of 6!

Assuming 50% of the 2.4M want tickets, 1.2M... That's 4.8M devices trying to access the server!!!

[DeanoL]

3 hours ago, fightoffyour said:

I simply don’t believe there are as many people trying for tickets as most seem to think. Not even double the amount that are available.

If the chances of getting a ticket every year are 50% then the probability of success 10 years in a row is (0.50)^10 = 0.1%.

For an 80% chance every year, -0 years of tickets = 10% chance.

I can’t be that lucky, and I doubt I’m the only one on here by a long way. We weren’t even well organised this year, had postcode and reg number fuckups along the way.

Yeah but there definitely weren't that many trying ten festivals ago, as that takes us back to the years that didn't sell out right away. There might be that many now.

[clarkete]

9 hours ago, mike46 said:

There’s no reason why they would, as it would just be hampering See’s/Glasto’s sales, but I would love them to restrict the number of transactions that go through a minute so the sale has to go one for several hours - that way the more determined will be rewarded. 

For those who find the current system brutal, back in about 2004 I was trying for 16 hours solid. 

In those days it was slow home Internet plus the option of calling them. 

I tried for sixteen hours solid, without a sniff and plenty of error pages. Thankfully a friend heard of my plight and she bought them for me in minutes with no such issue 😱

[fightoffyour]

13 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Yeah but there definitely weren't that many trying ten festivals ago, as that takes us back to the years that didn't sell out right away. There might be that many now.

Ok, I thought it sold out almost as quickly 10 years ago. According to The Thingy (https://theglastonburythingy.weebly.com/when-does.html) it's been a quick sell-out / hard to get tickets for the last 7 years at least.

(0.5)^7 * 100 = 0.8% chance.

[thrillhouse188]

3 hours ago, fightoffyour said:

I simply don’t believe there are as many people trying for tickets as most seem to think. Not even double the amount that are available.

If the chances of getting a ticket every year are 50% then the probability of success 10 years in a row is (0.50)^10 = 0.1%.

For an 80% chance every year, -0 years of tickets = 10% chance.

I can’t be that lucky, and I doubt I’m the only one on here by a long way. We weren’t even well organised this year, had postcode and reg number fuckups along the way.

I suspect the odds are actually quite high for people who try ‘properly’. Maybe just confirmation bias but as you say if people are able to get tickets pretty much every year it certainly suggests so. I also get the impression that a load of people will start trying and lose interest, choosing instead to moan on twitter.

Starts really difficult, then as time goes on people drop out as they’ve secured tickets or because they can’t be bothered, and by the end it there is less competition, rewarding the persistent. 

[Jose Pose]

3 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Ok, I thought it sold out almost as quickly 10 years ago. According to The Thingy (https://theglastonburythingy.weebly.com/when-does.html) it's been a quick sell-out / hard to get tickets for the last 7 years at least.

(0.5)^7 * 100 = 0.8% chance.

You can’t really work your odds out, nobody actually knows their odds because it depends on how many people/devices you have and how many times you try and hit a booking screen. Everyone’s odds will be completely different depending on how they approach the sale.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Jose Pose

[fightoffyour]

16 minutes ago, Jose Pose said:

You can’t really work your odds out, nobody actually knows their odds because it depends on how many people/devices you have and how many times you try and hit a booking screen. Everyone’s odds will be completely different depending on how they approach the sale.

Clearly the 50% odds is a big assumption, it changes with each year and with someone's "ability". Not even that, it's a number plucked out of the air.

I'm just using it to make a point that there can't be that (whatever that may be quantified as) many people trying to get tickets - if there are "only" double the amount of people trying to get tickets than want them on average, all with equal chance (not exactly true no because of persistence / tips / devices [really not sure this helps but anyway]), then the odds of getting in every year are tiny.

Even adjusted for a greater chance of getting tickets, it's still improbable [ (0.8)^7 * 100% = 20% ]. And that's with just double the amount of people trying - some see the 2 million figure and think its 20 times. It's not even 10 or 5 times but more like 2 at most I would wager. That's all I'm getting at.

 

[DeanoL]

24 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Ok, I thought it sold out almost as quickly 10 years ago. According to The Thingy (https://theglastonburythingy.weebly.com/when-does.html) it's been a quick sell-out / hard to get tickets for the last 7 years at least.

(0.5)^7 * 100 = 0.8% chance.

There have been 3 years of no festivals in that 7 years though. My gut feeling is it hit peak demand at some point about five festivals ago, probably the 2019 sale and it's dropping of a bit now. 

[DeanoL]

Huge numbers of people who just decide they want to go will probably only have one person trying for their group, because they assume it's like other popular shows. There's always the stories about how fast it sells out but most of the world don't see it as any different to trying to get Robbie Williams tickets, until they actually do it.

[Jose Pose]

I would hate a ballot, but it would have one positive and one negative for me. The positive being it would eliminate the Fomo and stress element of the current sale, it would be out of my hands so all I could do is cross my fingers each year.

The negative would be that it really would dissociate me from the festival, I’d enter every year but knowing if hardly ever get to go I wouldn’t want anything to do without outside the years I was successful.

One thing you could do to solve the group issue with a ballot though is allow groups of up to 16 to register, but a group of 16 would only get 1 entry into the ballot, whereas a single entry would get 16 entries into the ballot, 2 would get 8 and so on. This would encourage larger groups to group into smaller ones to increase their odds but still have the option of going with a large group if they really want to.

Of course the issue with a ballot would be working out how to spot duplicate registrations as that’s how people would try to game it.

[Avalon_Fields]

4 hours ago, fightoffyour said:

I simply don’t believe there are as many people trying for tickets as most seem to think. Not even double the amount that are available.

If the chances of getting a ticket every year are 50% then the probability of success 10 years in a row is (0.50)^10 = 0.1%.

For an 80% chance every year, -0 years of tickets = 10% chance.

I can’t be that lucky, and I doubt I’m the only one on here by a long way. We weren’t even well organised this year, had postcode and reg number fuckups along the way.

Must be true, I'm on my 16th consecutive Glastonbury and I'm no internet wizard. Simply down to being part of a large group and collective efforts.