Glastonbury has changed the way it allocates tickets. It’s fairer – but frustrating for those of us who have perfected our technique
November 17, 2024 7:00 am
There’s nothing Glastonbury veterans love more than telling you how much easier the festival was back in the day. “In 1970 it was only a pound, and we just turned up at the farm!” they’ll say, or “we just used to buy our tickets from the local record store a week before!” I had always rolled my eyes and ignored their wistful (and usually grumpy) remarks and made peace with the anxiety-inducing madness that is securing a Glastonbury ticket today.
But now I find myself joining their ranks. I too wish for the old ways.
This year, Glastonbury has announced that the way festival-goers secure tickets is changing. Instead of being kept in an online holding pen before being put through to the booking page, millions of hopefuls will now join a queue system. Anyone who is on the ticket page when the sale begins at 6pm will be “randomly assigned a place in the queue”; anyone who joins later will have to live with a spot at the back of the queue and wait their turn.
I know what you’re thinking: that seems fair. And you’re right, it is fair. It puts everyone who is keen enough to arrive early (or at least on time) to get tickets on a level playing field with equal chance of getting to Worthy Farm next June. But I hate it.
I have been trying – with various degrees of success – to get Glastonbury tickets for over a decade. Some years – like the glorious time I was put straight through to the booking page in 2022 – it’s been surprisingly easy. But most of the time securing tickets (and making sure you get to go with as many as your mates as possible) is an utter slog and involves creating syndicates and WhatsApp groups and excel spreadsheets weeks in advance.
The hard work doesn’t stop there – ticket day itself is a waking nightmare. As well as having as many devices as possible attempting to get through to the booking page, each of them needs to be consistently refreshed in the hope that the next reload would take you through to the hallowed booking page. Yes, it risks a repetitive strain injury, but I’d take that sense of control (no matter how much of a placebo it might be) over leaving my fate up to wherever See Tickets decides to drop me in the queue.
Now all my hard work is wasted. My refreshing skills (second to none, if I may be so bold) have been rendered useless. Getting Glastonbury tickets has been a badge of honour I’ve worn proudly – by which I mean shown off about – for years. This will be the first year I’ve ever gone into the sale with a sense of dread, rather than (probably misplaced) confidence.
I know I’m being a brat. I know I’m being selfish. This is the only way to make getting tickets to the most horrifically oversubscribed festival even remotely fair. But there’s also proof that this sort of queuing system doesn’t really work – people who spent hours waiting to get Oasis tickets after being put in a random place in the queue weren’t rewarded for their patience or belief in the system.
Last year 2.5 million people tried to get 210,000 tickets and the general sale sold out in just 58 minutes. When it comes down to the cold hard facts, both this new system and the old one are down to pure luck. No matter how many tricks you try or how long you wait for your turn at the front of the queue, whether the Glastonbury gods bless you with a ticket is complete chance.
But that doesn’t make me any more inclined to warm to the new queuing system. Glastonbury might be a place of peace and love but getting there is war – as far as I’m concerned whoever is in the front of the queue, be it 10 or 10,000 people, is my mortal enemy. See you on the battlefield.