Music fans have spoken of being "devastated" after missing out on Glastonbury tickets which sold out within just an hour for the 2023 music festival. In a morning which was described as "carnage" by fans aiming to book tickets online, thousands were clicking refresh in a bid to get their hands on the tickets - which have increased in price to £340 for next year's return.
But just an hour after going on sale on Sunday, it was all over for fans with thousands celebrating success, but seemingly thousands more gutted in defeat. Glastonbury Festival organisers announced just after 10am it was completely sold out.
The swift sale was despite "technical problems" experienced by the festival's official ticket seller See Tickets. The second release of General Sale tickets were all sold by 10.03am after being made available from 9am on Sunday.
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Glastonbury’s official account posted: “Tickets for Glastonbury 2023 have now Sold Out. Thank you to everyone who bought one and we’re sorry to those of you who missed out, on a morning when demand far exceeded supply."
It added, which may give a slight glimmer of hope to fans: "There will be a resale of any cancelled or returned tickets in spring 2023."
Earlier on Sunday morning, the company running ticket sales for Glastonbury 2023 asked fans to “bear with” them as the were “working on a technical problem”.
A tweet on See Tickets’ official account said: “We’re working on a technical problem. If you’re trying to book @glastonbury tickets please bear with us – we’ll be back up and running soon.”
The swift sell out left fans hoping to secure tickets "fuming" and "devastated". Many took to Twitter to describe their frustration that having got to the final screen on the See Tickets page, only to be "kicked out" and having to restart the process again.
Matt Bishop tweeted: "Nobody minds losing out on tickets or having to refresh to get in: but you need to sort the ticketing system out so it never crashes once people actually get through. Unforgivable."
Lara Gould tweeted: "Unbelievably frustrating process - made it to the registration page a few times and then the servers didn’t respond for payment! Please please please come up with a better and fairer system!"
Sharing the holding page image, @LennonyFresh said: "Worst hour of my life staring at this. 1 device the whole time, fast internet and still, nothing."
Speaking on Twitter, Twisted Humanoid said: "My son and I have been talking about going to this when he’s 12 for YEARS! Since he was a small boy! They’ve single handedly ruined that dream of ours now. He’s devastated, I’m devastated. No doubts the same people will have tickets. How that works though, God only knows!"
Coach tickets to the event, which include transport to the Worthy Farm venue in Somerset, sold out by 6.23pm last Thursday after going on sale at 6pm. The only remaining chance for fans is the resale of unwanted tickets in April.
See Tickets apologised to those who missed out or experienced problems on Sunday. In a statement on Twitter it said: "Tickets for @Glastonbury Festival 2023 are now SOLD OUT. Confirmation emails are going out now. Congratulations to everyone who got tickets this morning. We're sorry to those who missed out or had issues trying to book."
But many are now calling for an urgent review of how people are able to buy tickets for future Glastonbuy Festivals. They say a ballot or waiting list would be a fairer way.
The current system is already based on a registration system. Fans were able to pre-register in advance to be given access to the general sale to try and buy up to 6 tickets via the Glastonbury See Tickets site.
On Twitter, @Niaccurshi said: "It always exceeds supply. Begs the question as to when you're going to as an organisation do the ethical thing and move to system that doesn't create a lottery via hardware limitation. You already have a lottery based system here, but one that wastes people's time and emotion."
Si Hutch said: "So starts the ticket lottery...surely there's a better way to allocate the tickets...perhaps a waiting list of sorts then perhaps everyone would be able to experience this amazing place at least once in their life....come on Glastonbury equal opportunity for all please."
The swift sell out was despite the big hike in prices for the 2023 event. The last time tickets went on general sale was in 2019 and they cost £265 plus a £5 booking fee for what should have been the 2020 festival, but it was subsequently cancelled for two years due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This year they cost £335 plus a £5 booking fee. Organisers have defended the massive price jump, blaming the huge increase of costs.
Emily Eavis said on Twitter: "We have tried very hard to minimise the increase in price on the ticket but we’re facing enormous rises in the costs of running this vast show, while still recovering from the huge financial impact of two years without a festival because of COVID."
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