Glastonbury 2007 pt1: the build-up
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damnhippie
shark sandwich
having just had my confirmation email (and just got back from the pub), i wanted to say a late thanks to all those who posted info up here during the great ticket scramble 
. so ta folks, see you at the cider bus!
. so ta folks, see you at the cider bus!
Ticket Day issue
How widely were we aware on Urban on Sunday that once you had a window open to Seetickets booking page, you could keep refreshing (or back buttoning) a theoretically infinuite number of times to get as many tickets for your (registered) friends as you liked ... so long as you had access to their details?
I believe there's more than one discussion about this issue on TOS. But on efessts too, there's a majorly intense exhange of views about the ethics of people securing tickets for their friends/website contacts, and according to some, clogging up access for others behind them in the queue ....
The discussion is inevitable techie and geeky in places, but a lot of people are very exercised about it ...
Myself, I'm far too so grateful to have got an otherwise near-unobtainable ticket through the help of Exeter friends, and so relieved not to be missing Glasto, and with such a limited grasp of the more arcane techie details of how it was possible, that I find it hard to take any objective view ...
But the question of whether the process is queuejumping or not, is it a matter of who not what you know etc., does seem to be an issue that rankles for many .... the term CLIQUES has been bandied about! in relation to MSN circles, email citrcles, phone trees etc. All of which were organised not just on efests but almost certainly all over all sorts of other sites and networks elsewhere as well ...
(In any case, I guess I might have been able to use those extra phoneline numbers, the originally unpublicised ones, that were posted on here -- only picked up on those after I'd already got a ticket ... )
How widely were we aware on Urban on Sunday that once you had a window open to Seetickets booking page, you could keep refreshing (or back buttoning) a theoretically infinuite number of times to get as many tickets for your (registered) friends as you liked ... so long as you had access to their details?
I believe there's more than one discussion about this issue on TOS. But on efessts too, there's a majorly intense exhange of views about the ethics of people securing tickets for their friends/website contacts, and according to some, clogging up access for others behind them in the queue ....
The discussion is inevitable techie and geeky in places, but a lot of people are very exercised about it ...
Myself, I'm far too so grateful to have got an otherwise near-unobtainable ticket through the help of Exeter friends, and so relieved not to be missing Glasto, and with such a limited grasp of the more arcane techie details of how it was possible, that I find it hard to take any objective view ...
But the question of whether the process is queuejumping or not, is it a matter of who not what you know etc., does seem to be an issue that rankles for many .... the term CLIQUES has been bandied about! in relation to MSN circles, email citrcles, phone trees etc. All of which were organised not just on efests but almost certainly all over all sorts of other sites and networks elsewhere as well ...
(In any case, I guess I might have been able to use those extra phoneline numbers, the originally unpublicised ones, that were posted on here -- only picked up on those after I'd already got a ticket ... )
david dissadent
New Member
Bit of a romour doing the rounds that Maximo Park might be headlining the Other stage.
david dissadent
New Member
It deffinently seemed like what was happening. But TOS was as dead as a dodo, so they only found out by MSN and other sources.William of Walworth said:
William of Walworth said:How widely were we aware on Urban on Sunday that once you had a window open to Seetickets booking page, you could keep refreshing (or back buttoning) a theoretically infinuite number of times to get as many tickets for your (registered) friends as you liked ... so long as you had access to their details?
QUOTE]
I only found out afterwards. Tough one to comment on really as I got my tickets through this method so im overjoyed to be going to glasto for the 12th time in a row (like your goodself
Mapped
London town
I did the back button thing in 2005 to get some of my mates tickets and tried it out this year after I bought ours to see if it was working again.
As soon as I found out you could get to the first page of the ordering system again I was emailing mates and recieved calls from friends of friends I hadn't met before for me to get them tickets. I wasn't part of any clique, just sharing knowledge with real life friends to help people get what they wanted. And I've been promised a cider or 2 come 20th June for my troubles
However I do think the system should have kicked you out after you ordered though to make it fairer for all trying to get into the ticketing system. But you can't blame people for using the technology available to help out thier mates.
As soon as I found out you could get to the first page of the ordering system again I was emailing mates and recieved calls from friends of friends I hadn't met before for me to get them tickets. I wasn't part of any clique, just sharing knowledge with real life friends to help people get what they wanted. And I've been promised a cider or 2 come 20th June for my troubles
However I do think the system should have kicked you out after you ordered though to make it fairer for all trying to get into the ticketing system. But you can't blame people for using the technology available to help out thier mates.
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
That was appalling.
They should have invalidated the page on all browsers once you clicked buy and killed off the connection.
Allowing multiple buys off the same connection (people got a connection when a web server became free and you were lucky) was nearly criminal and seetickets deserve to lose the contract for that. Michael Evis wants new people to come then preventing one person single handedly buying hundreds of tickets on mass is surely going to help.
They should have invalidated the page on all browsers once you clicked buy and killed off the connection.
Allowing multiple buys off the same connection (people got a connection when a web server became free and you were lucky) was nearly criminal and seetickets deserve to lose the contract for that. Michael Evis wants new people to come then preventing one person single handedly buying hundreds of tickets on mass is surely going to help.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Seetickets should be able to easilly release the info as to how many differnt ip addresses managed to buy tickets, which would give an indication of the extent to which such mulit-purchases occurred. couldn't be entirely accurate due to legitimate networks (like at uni's etc). they'll never do it of course
electrogirl
dignity is overrated
yeah that's how we got ours tbh, we weren't getting anywhere despite having 3 laptops and phones on the go, our friend elsewhere said he kept getting through so put through the transaction for us.N1 Buoy said:I did the back button thing in 2005 to get some of my mates tickets and tried it out this year after I bought ours to see if it was working again.
As soon as I found out you could get to the first page of the ordering system again I was emailing mates and recieved calls from friends of friends I hadn't met before for me to get them tickets. I wasn't part of any clique, just sharing knowledge with real life friends to help people get what they wanted. And I've been promised a cider or 2 come 20th June for my troubles
However I do think the system should have kicked you out after you ordered though to make it fairer for all trying to get into the ticketing system. But you can't blame people for using the technology available to help out thier mates.
is it that bad???
Sunray
Its sunny somewhere.
Its not bad, if something works, use it.
But it should have been blindingly obvious that that was going to happen. Big ticket sales should at the very least be vaguely fair. People buying loads for themselves and all their mates at the expense of people who couldn't get a single ticket for themselves isn't.
But it should have been blindingly obvious that that was going to happen. Big ticket sales should at the very least be vaguely fair. People buying loads for themselves and all their mates at the expense of people who couldn't get a single ticket for themselves isn't.
electrogirl
dignity is overrated
i guess, but how many transactions maximum are they gonna put through, really? 10? 20? it's not exactly touting.Sunray said:
Looby
Well-Known Member
electrogirl said:
Someone on e-fests or TOS was boasting about buying 150+ tickets.
I don't have an issue with people using the system to get tickets for their mates irl or otherwise but when there are MSN networks set up specifically for this then it's a bit tight. Like others have said though I don't blame the buyers, but see tickets should have made sure this couldn't happen.
How is this different to the link in 2005 that got half of urban and other sites tickets or the extra tele numbers this year?
Most of those complaining are those who didn't get tickets (so they are bound to be really pissed off, I can't blame them) but I'm damn sure they would have used the shortcuts if they'd known about them.
pagan
Guerilla Gardener
Nice post William. The old addage 'Knowledge is Power' applies as much here as anywhere else.
Three years ago I got a ticket only because Aqua and Wiskey pm'd me when they somehow found out a second tranche of tix had quietly gone on sale three weeks after April 1 and I am eternally grateful.
We all use whatever means available to us if we really want something and in an arena of scarce resources (ie tix), it's very much a case of 'by all means necesasary'. At least it seems to be genuine festie goers and not touts who benefited and those with the techie nous or the contacts to rise above the crowd can only be commended.... but this might be something Eavis will want to look at for next year and perhaps the newbies and others who missed out this year will learn from the experience next time and organise. Cooperation is what makes us Human after all.......
Nice one to those who posted the 0115 tel nos. and those who helped others get tix and good luck to ticketless Urbanites on the 22nd.............
Three years ago I got a ticket only because Aqua and Wiskey pm'd me when they somehow found out a second tranche of tix had quietly gone on sale three weeks after April 1 and I am eternally grateful.
We all use whatever means available to us if we really want something and in an arena of scarce resources (ie tix), it's very much a case of 'by all means necesasary'. At least it seems to be genuine festie goers and not touts who benefited and those with the techie nous or the contacts to rise above the crowd can only be commended.... but this might be something Eavis will want to look at for next year and perhaps the newbies and others who missed out this year will learn from the experience next time and organise. Cooperation is what makes us Human after all.......
Nice one to those who posted the 0115 tel nos. and those who helped others get tix and good luck to ticketless Urbanites on the 22nd.............
sparklefish said:Someone on e-fests or TOS was boasting about buying 150+ tickets.
There's no way they'll be allowed to retain the current multiple ticket buy-enabling system for 2008. One problem though is that Seetickets has some sort of business overlap with Mean Fiddler (can't remember the details -- does MF control SeeTickets?). Still, they'll have to put right that major loophole.
That 150 is unrepresentative, however. All people you're buying tickets for, have to be registered, legit people (so in no way did any touts benefit). Very few people that I've seen on the net, got more than between 4 and ca. 10, even 15 was uncommon. Not saying that even these smaller transactions were right or correct, but that 150 story stood out like a sore thumb to me amidst all the many more modestly sized groups who were helped by their friends.
And as Crispy suggests, it was groups of friends, supremely organised, who had already set themselves in email/phone/MSN circles, and/or are associated with websites. They were largely organised before, they had no idea in advance that the loophole was going to work the way it did. On efests,and probably on other sites, people were helping online acquaintances who they'd not met, some have argued it's a bit of a net community thing even!
Personally, as I said above, I benefitted from this loophole.
I'm led to wonder whether howver technically sophisticated future ticket selling software becomes, there won't always be some loophole that some techie-savvy sorts (or just lucky people!) will winkle out or just stumble across.
And other things will be discovered, like extra, initially unpublicised phone lines, such as those posted up here that allowed many Urbanites to get their tickets.
Can SeeTickets, or anyone else, EVER overcome the desparate and creative impulse to get in?
We're all implicated and so long as we try to get super organised to buy Glasto tickets, we will continue to be ...
135,000 tickets were being sold to a lot larger number of registered people. A lot of people were blocked from getting tickets. But a fair proportion of those same people being blocked were being helped by their friends who were luckier, so you could say that those who suffered were those not in friendship groups, not net connected, not up to speed generally with chat on websites, etc. As someome who's been to Glastonbury alone in the past, that factor disturbs me .. but back in 1999 thee weren't Glasto dedicated websites to anything like the same extent as now ....
Very rough justice sure, from which some benefitted (including, as I said, some of those intitially blocked themselves, like me!).
I do feel genuinely sorry for those who were desparate to get to Glasto and didn't make it
I hope they get lucky on the 22nd or next year .... but there'll always be losers sadly ...If I'd been one of them, I strongly suspect I wouldn't have ended up talking like this though
so I do fully recognise the massive imperfections .... just musing over the issues really ...bouncer_the_dog
Well-Known Member
In summary: the ticket process was a fucking shambles. Again. Glastonbury is an awesome festival but there are a few aspects of it that annoy me. The ticketing for a start. But other than that I have been to a few big festivals and they have been better organised and had lower ticket prices. Also whoever sorts out the line ups these days has had a bit of a brain fart. Coldplay? Rod Stewart? Kylie? Shirley Bassey? Compare that to the old school line ups when they had to put good people on. If it wasn't for the super fence keeping out the non-IT crowd these would have been covered in mud. TBH I have some sympathy for the guy from Primal Scream who got dragged off the stage last year. Ever since 2003 the crowd at glasto and the festival has been different and a slight self satisfaction has crept in. I met a bloke at the brothers bar who was ranting on at me how Eavis can't be bothered to sort out any drainage, or invest in the site. I wonder if he has this year, or will we see another flood?
I still like the festival and my plan b if I didn't get a ticket was to stalk the peremiter of the festival from say teusday or so,probing for weakspots in the defence, dressed in black with a rope and grappling hook. I may have to still do it as useless see tickets have not claimed the money for my enforced coach tickets.
In recent years I think my main motivation for going to glastonbury is that I couldn't bear NOT to go, mainly because the saturation media coverage drives me up the wall.
I still like the festival and my plan b if I didn't get a ticket was to stalk the peremiter of the festival from say teusday or so,probing for weakspots in the defence, dressed in black with a rope and grappling hook. I may have to still do it as useless see tickets have not claimed the money for my enforced coach tickets.
In recent years I think my main motivation for going to glastonbury is that I couldn't bear NOT to go, mainly because the saturation media coverage drives me up the wall.
bouncer_the_dog said:
This is just ignorance., Have you, or this bloke, got any idea how much money Michael Eavis invested in overall site drainage since 1997? If we'd had 2005's storm in 1997, on top of all the other rain that year, the whole situation would have been 10 times worse.
The reason for the floods at the bottom of Pennards was because apart from it being an utterly freak storm, the neighbouring farmer, whose land it was, hadn't (for some reason??) wanted Michael Eavis to invest the money he wanted to, prior to the 2005 festival, in storm drains under the old railway line.
In the 2 year lay off, there's been full storm drainage installed there and the whole of the Other Stage field has has had its ground drainage thoroughly overhauled. This investment came at considerable cost.
Sods law, in a good way, says that after all that we'll have a totally dry and hot and sunny one this year
But drunken ranters who drivel on about Eavis the profiteering capitalist who doesn't care for or invest in the festival, are ignorant.
Plenty of faults to the festival, I've made many criticisms myself, especially of Budshiter in the past. And I'd have some more agreement with your complaint about lineups -- if it wasn't for the fact that headliners such as Rod Stewart had ZERO relevance to a huge proportion of people there that year who were off to see the vast variety of other stuff happening. And don't forget full on capitalist 'festivals' like V and Carling tying up some of the bigger names in exclusivity deals, and that Glastonbury offers lower fees so that more ends up going to the causes (charity money gets paid BEFORE any of the stakeholders take their cut).
(Simplistic summary, in rush now, but it's all more complicated than you imply).
If you're going to make criticisms, do soem research and base them on reality ...
bouncer_the_dog
Well-Known Member
But I was asking about the drainage in the lower field. And you answered. Research done.
newbie
undisambiguated
bouncer_the_dog said:
was it? I know stress levels here went up 'n up for those couple of hours (really not helped by it being first thing on a sunday morning) but after that couple of hours there were a hundred and something thousand satisfied people.
Email confirmation has been slow and patchy, which needs improving, but there don't seem to be lots of people who thought they'd been successful and actually haven't. Demand outstripped supply, so there were bound to be disappointed and maybe bitter people but no tweaking of the ticket buying process would change that.
I'm sure you could devise ways you think would work better, but ultimately there'll still be the same number of people who get tix whatever mechanism you use (if it works... a proper shambles is where all the stress and uncertainty yields nothing as money is randomly withdrawn, tickets aren't issued and the whole process collapses with nobody happy).
bouncer_the_dog
Well-Known Member
Not taking the money, not sending emails, allowing some people to buy many tickets and others to buy none. Shambles. I am not paid to invent ticketing systems, but I have spoken to technical people in the past who seem to be of the opinion it could have been better organised, in fact there are people saying that on this thread.
SubComandante
I like your sleeves...
docus said:
was just about to post the same thing, just checked and its still not come out
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
bollocks.bouncer_the_dog said:
a shambles would be half the tickets going unsold, or them going to blatant touts. as it was , it sold out in just over 100 minutes, 20 tickets every second. Not particularly shambolic at all.
We still haven't had our money debitted, but the order is inally up on the ticket tracker, so that's good enough for me.
bouncer_the_dog
Well-Known Member
I still expect higher quality customer service I am afraid. The website crashing and the money not being taken is shambolic.
bouncer_the_dog
Well-Known Member
It worked better 2005. But clearly you shouldn't criticise Glasto on the Glasto thread 
bouncer_the_dog
Well-Known Member
How do I square the days of yore with customer service? Thats actually a really interesting question. I wonder if the days of yore, on balance, had better customer service? I think the whole massive problem with Glastonbury as a festival is that its taking a long time to reconcile itself with the fact it is now a corporate entity. The festival can't square its selling point of being a big hippy fest with the good customer service that a big corporate festival should have. By customer service I mean everything including the toilets, the drainage, the crowd control, the security, the camping and the tickets. As well as the music and all the entertainment. I think the festival needs to step up a notch. Maybe it will this year, it remains to be seen. But the ticket thing doesn't bode well. what I mean is now that the days of yore are just that, its time for the festival to improve at a greater rate.
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