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Coach tickets - do we all need to be present?


Qwerty1234567890
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We have coach tickets for the 6.30am coach from Bristol. But as we no longer live locally, we need to travel up the night before, which is a nuisance (not least because my daughter has a music exam at school that day, so I will need to find childcare if both parents really do need to be on the coach). 
There are 2 of us with tickets - do we both need to be on the coach or can one person collect both tickets? And can we take the coach, collect the tickets, and then not actually enter the festival until the next day (we need to return home to London to pick up daughter). 
See tickets have been less than helpful and told us if we can’t travel on the coach we need to cancel the tickets. 
 

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Yes both need to be there, they won't let anyone else have your ticket.  And you need ID.  There is always the view on here that if you are not present, the ticket gets given to the box office on site and you could collect from there but I wouldn't want to rely on that.  

But you wouldn't need to enter straight away.  You'd get dropped off at Gate A though and would need to get the shuttle bus back to Castle Cary I think. 

Assuming you are talking about Wednesday, it's going to be very busy around Gate A at that time.

What's happening to your daughter's ticket?

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See Tickets will always say that as that's the agreement you've made when buying those tickets. They can't advertise that you can buy the coach tickets & not fulfil that end of the deal.

The driver has the tickets, so it will be up to them, wether they decide to give you the second ticket. (I can't remember if they give the tickets out per booking, or individual name) If they don't give it to you, it will go to the ticket office where you'll have to grovel & apologise, but from what I've heard they do give the ticket back (imagine the outrage, losing out on a £280 ticket because you missed a coach due to a family emergency). Just bring every email & paperwork you have for it.

And yes, once you have your ticket & taken the coach you can go wherever you want, even home.

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27 minutes ago, Beerqueen said:

Yes both need to be there, they won't let anyone else have your ticket.  And you need ID.  There is always the view on here that if you are not present, the ticket gets given to the box office on site and you could collect from there but I wouldn't want to rely on that.  

But you wouldn't need to enter straight away.  You'd get dropped off at Gate A though and would need to get the shuttle bus back to Castle Cary I think. 

Assuming you are talking about Wednesday, it's going to be very busy around Gate A at that time.

What's happening to your daughter's ticket?

Daughter is under 12 so doesn’t need a ticket. We actually have a coach ticket booked for her as well - booked before we realised she had an exam. 

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I went on the coach from Bristol in 2019, and it was an early one as well.  The driver was not very fussy about checking numbers etc.  I can't remember if we got the tickets as we got on the bus or whether people came to the front to collect, but it was relaxed and I think both of ours were handed to the lead booker without checks that everyone was there.

Edited by buddiepaul
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Don't rely on individual ancedotal experiences and act in accordance with the rules is my advice. It's down to the individual drivers on the day how they apply rules. Some drivers are totally relaxed on how they hand them out, others carefully match the printed photo to the passenger. Are you prepared to take the risk with the associated worry?

Edited by Lycra
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Whereas our driver was a stickler, made everyone sit in their assigned seats and wouldn't give any tickets out to anyone without ID and didn't give them out until the service station half way there.  It's a bugger but I couldn't risk it

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Thanks everyone. Will decide nearer the time whether to risk it. It would make life so much easier if only one of us went to collect the tickets. Had the festival gone ahead in 2020, my daughter would have been in her last few weeks of primary school and taking her out of school for a few days wouldn’t have been a problem. Now she’s in Y8 it’s not such an easy decision, especially with a music exam to factor in 😞. Shame there’s no flexibility around ticket collection given so many people’s circumstances have changed since booking the tickets 3 years ago. 

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11 hours ago, Qwerty1234567890 said:

Thanks everyone. Will decide nearer the time whether to risk it. It would make life so much easier if only one of us went to collect the tickets. Had the festival gone ahead in 2020, my daughter would have been in her last few weeks of primary school and taking her out of school for a few days wouldn’t have been a problem. Now she’s in Y8 it’s not such an easy decision, especially with a music exam to factor in 😞. Shame there’s no flexibility around ticket collection given so many people’s circumstances have changed since booking the tickets 3 years ago. 

They keep increasing the allocation for coach tickets because they want as many of us as possible to come by alternatives to car.  It's particularly difficult in these days where we all share information so easily, so if they tell some of us that they can make exceptions, then suddenly loads of us are asking for them.  It's not just in relation to this - for example they have rigid policies about not selling you a campervan pass if you're coming by coach too (and many of us try some sort of sob story).

To share my own experience - I've got a few coaches from Bristol and one from London - in the case of the London then as we got on after services he dished out the tickets, but to each allocated person.  In the case of Bristol they stopped part way through the journey and similarly dished them out to each person.

a) You could both come down on the coach and get the tickets then travel back to London afterwards, but clearly it's a very long way

b) You can get them from the box office if you miss the coach, but I've only heard of people doing that the same day, maybe you could do it the next day?

c) You're the only 3 coming down?  She can't come down with someone else in your group.

d) She's not old enough that you'd feel comfortable with her getting a National Express coach or Castle Cary train without the two of you?

e) As @Junglist1981 said, there's no opportunity to rearrange the exam? 

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Hi,

I have a similarly difficult coach/ticket situation.

I also have the coach package and am also getting the 6:30am coach from Bristol - I am planning to take my daughter (9) but when I contacted SeeTickets they said there were no spare seats that I could book to take her too. I contacted National Express but they can't guarantee it will be them operating those coaches as they say a lot of their bookings are outsourced.

I'm currently negotiating varying levels of convoluted travel plans to make the coach and then travel back to London to collect my daughter before returning to Glastonbury again. 

@Qwerty1234567890 - is there a possibility I could buy the ticket you won't be using for your daughter?  I'm not sure it helps your dilemma of someone collecting a ticket on your behalf, but it may give you some of the money you have paid out back if it won't be used?

Many thanks nad hopeful something can be arranged,

Kieren.

 

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@KierenB Which day are you traveling - Wed or Thu? Can you send me a DM? Happy to give you the ticket for free if we definitely don’t end up using it, but will confirm a day or two before, as need to speak to school, check lineup(!) and sort out childcare etc. 99% certain we won’t be using the child ticket, in which case you’re welcome to it - just not ready to give it up just yet. 

 

Edited by Qwerty1234567890
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/31/2022 at 10:16 PM, Wooderson said:

Is there a history/track record of people who miss the coach forfeiting their festival tickets?

Never heard of this happening. Pick up at box office is the worst scenario.

we have got coaches from Swindon, Bristol and Truro and had everything from handed out before boarding (and some other people then didn’t board), casual handout en route, rigid handout en route (with amusing angry very non Glastonbury shouting match when one guy wanted to get off in the layby as his mates were following the bus in a car because they didn’t have coach tickets, but our coach driver was having none of it!)

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1 hour ago, Neville Street said:

Never heard of this happening. Pick up at box office is the worst scenario.

we have got coaches from Swindon, Bristol and Truro and had everything from handed out before boarding (and some other people then didn’t board), casual handout en route, rigid handout en route (with amusing angry very non Glastonbury shouting match when one guy wanted to get off in the layby as his mates were following the bus in a car because they didn’t have coach tickets, but our coach driver was having none of it!)

Yeh have got the coach before. Key thing to reassure people is that if you miss the coach the tickets don't get torn up. Its not the end of the world.

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14 minutes ago, Wooderson said:

Key thing to reassure people is that if you miss the coach the tickets don't get torn up. Its not the end of the world.

I don't have experience one way or the other.  If this became too much of "a thing" however, people using coach tickets as 'pick up from the box office when you fancy',  I would be worried that organisers would stamp down on it.  I'd think this would become more likely as more tickets are becoming combined coach tickets.  Could leave a lot of people in the lurch if tickets weren't waiting for them.

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8 minutes ago, Glast0baby said:

I don't have experience one way or the other.  If this became too much of "a thing" however, people using coach tickets as 'pick up from the box office when you fancy',  I would be worried that organisers would stamp down on it.  I'd think this would become more likely as more tickets are becoming combined coach tickets.  Could leave a lot of people in the lurch if tickets weren't waiting for them.

In my experience this summer, Seetickets level of support to people with coach tickets will inevitably lead to this. They didnt give a shite about us.

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A lot of peoples circumstances have changed in the years since booking the tickets, I now have to travel half way across the UK only to get the coach and come back the way I went.

I was willing to stick to coach but change departure point and I'm sure a lot of others would have.

See tickets only response was cancel or get the coach. I haven't seen of anyone getting sympathy from see tickets 

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The rigidity that See (and by tacit agreement GF HQ) apply here is garbage. No flexibility or understanding from personal experience. In an era when they are encouraging people to travel sustainably and be more aware the  "take the coach or gfy" attitude really grinds and would scare me off in future.

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I am under no illusion about the level of logistical oversight required to pull this off. But I do wonder if they could sell coach tickets, and then have people nominate first and second choice pick up points following this? The maximum difference on a coach is in the realm of 50 people, whereas they sell coach tickets in the 5 figures right?

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3 hours ago, Wooderson said:

The rigidity that See (and by tacit agreement GF HQ) apply here is garbage. No flexibility or understanding from personal experience. In an era when they are encouraging people to travel sustainably and be more aware the  "take the coach or gfy" attitude really grinds and would scare me off in future.

It all seems pretty understandable to me:-

Selling many thousands of coach tickets every festival helps provide an easy route to a very rural part of Somerset, reduces their carbon footprint whilst reducing local pollution and keeps several thousand cars off the packed local roads. 

Providing that coach option from across the country is clearly a massive logistic feat and yet it's really rare to hear of folks turning up to find they aren't expected or the ticket wasn't there. Providing us all the opportunity to change our booking rather than cancel massively increases the complexity and potential workload for teams who I'm sure have no spare capacity. 

If they announce that we can all go to the box office there will suddenly be thousands of us simply using it as another option for a ticket and driving instead. There are things they used to be more openly flexible about (eg CV passes) but due to profiteering had to clamp down sadly. 

With the two cancellations this year will have a lot of changed circumstances for attendees, but would also have made it especially hard for the festival to change their systems. 

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