The annual mad scramble for Glastonbury tickets is (almost) upon us.
The first of the festival’s roughly 135,000 spots were due to go on sale tonight, but sales have been pushed back “out of fairness” due to some confusion over the registration process.
Tickets to the iconic event at Worthy Farm in Somerset, which will take place from 26 to 30 June next year, are only available online and millions already registered to apply.
Organisers said: “Unfortunately, it has come to light that some individuals hoping to buy tickets for 2024 have discovered after Monday’s registration deadline that they are no longer registered, despite believing they were.
“Out of fairness to those individuals, we will be re-opening the window for registration at 12 noon on Monday 6 November. It will remain open until 5pm on Monday 13 November.”
If you were gearing up to put all your best tactics forward tonight, you can call off the booking Glasto gathering and save your energy for the next two weeks.
When the time comes, here’s everything you need to know before trying to get tickets:
How to register
Thanks to Glastonbury’s date changes, you can still register for buying tickets between 12pm on Monday 6 November and 5pm on Monday 13 November by clicking here.
If you miss the latest deadline to register, you will still be in with a chance of getting tickets for the event next June if you register before April 2024, when Glastonbury will have a number of resale dates, selling tickets that have been cancelled (dates yet to be confirmed).
Where can I get tickets?
Tickets can be bought exclusively at glastonbury.seetickets.com once they become available.
No other site or agency will be allocated tickets, so if you see anyone else claiming to have Glastonbury tickets available for purchase, it’s most likely a scam.
What types of tickets are available and when?
Tickets including coach travel become available on Thursday 16 November at 6pm GMT.
General admission tickets go on sale at 9am GMT on Sunday 19 November.
There will be another opportunity to get tickets during the resale dates in April 2024.
If you take the ticket plus coach option, getting the coach that you select is mandatory and you will only receive your ticket once you are on that coach.
This means that you can’t pay extra for the ticket and coach option just to secure a ticket early and then not use the transport.
You can also only book ticket and travel options from one destination – meaning if you are buying more than one ticket on 16 November, everyone that you are buying for in your transaction needs to get the same coach to Glastonbury.
Children aged 12 and under when the festival takes place are admitted free of charge and do not need a ticket, nor do they need to register.
You will need to reserve additional coach seats for the children if booking a ticket plus coach travel package, though.
Why does Glastonbury make people register in advance?
It’s to avoid ticket touting, Glastonbury says.
All tickets are personalised with a photo of the ticket holder and cannot be transferred to another recipient.
This makes it far more difficult to resell them at a higher price, which is often a major problem seen at other festivals and concerts.
How many tickets can I buy?
You can buy up to six tickets at a time, but all of the people you’re buying the tickets for need to be registered with Glastonbury.
You will need their registration numbers and postcodes as well as your own.
How does the booking process work?
Once tickets go up for sale, all potential buyers are sent to a holding page.
Glastonbury says users are held at the holding page until there is space on the booking page. The holding page refreshes every 20 seconds to look for a space on the booking page.
You may see a reduced, bare-looking version of the booking page once you gain entry.
The organisers say this is intentional in order to cope with high traffic and does not mean the site has crashed, so be sure not to refresh or leave the page.
Once you reach the first page of the booking site, you will need to enter the registration number and registered postcode for yourself and the other people you are attempting to book tickets for.
When you proceed, the details you have provided will be displayed on the next page.
Once you have double checked all of your information is correct, click ‘confirm’ to enter the payment page, where you will need to check/amend your billing address, confirm your payment information, accept the terms and conditions, and complete the check out within the allocated time.
Giving yourself the best chance
Those who are registered and raring to go should remember to get the basics right.
Here are the must-haves if you want to stand any chance of getting a ticket:
• Good internet connection. You won’t stand a chance without solid broadband.
• Timekeeping. Make sure you are on the tickets page at exactly 6pm on 16 November or 9am on 19 November – even if it means setting an unwelcome alarm on Sunday.
• No distractions. There are time limits during the booking process. If you reach the stage where you have been assigned tickets, you will still need to check/amend your billing address, confirm your payment information, accept the terms and conditions, and complete the check out within the allocated timeframe.
• Be ready to approve your payment. There is a chance – especially if you are paying for multiple tickets – that you will have to pass additional security questions from your card issuer. Have a device on hand to ensure you are ready to do this swiftly.
• Don’t give up. Until you see the ominous ‘SOLD OUT’ display on the site, there is still a chance. Shortly before that point, there will be a message saying ‘all available tickets have now been allocated,’ which users often think means their chances are up. What it actually means is that orders are being processed for all the tickets that are available. But if somebody whose order is being processed doesn’t take our previous advice and runs out of time, their loss could be your gain.
Does using multiple devices actually help?
You may have seen photos shared on social media of individuals sitting in front of multiple phones, laptops and iPads that are all on the tickets loading page.
Glastonbury’s website advises that running multiple devices simultaneously is “a waste of valuable resources, and doesn’t reflect the ethos of the festival”.
“Please stick to one device and one tab,” it adds, “so that you can focus on entering your details without confusing your browser and help us make the ticket sale as quick and stress free as possible for all.”
In case your priorities aren’t the festival’s ethos or making the ticketing process stress free for all, it is worth noting that you would need to be very confident in your broadband’s capabilities to use multiple devices.
For your own sake, you may be better off using one device with concentrated connection rather than several using it in weaker doses.
What about multiple tabs on one device?
It was alluded to in the previous section, but Glastonbury definitively says using multiple tabs will not increase your chances of success.
In fact, it could do the opposite.
Glastonbury’s website reads: “Attempting to book tickets online using multiple browser tabs can confuse the ticket sales process and cause your transaction to fail.
“We strongly advise that you use just one browser tab when trying to book tickets, in order to avoid possible problems with your transaction.”
How much do tickets cost and do I pay up front?
Tickets for Glastonbury 2024 will cost £355, plus a £5 booking fee.
If you are buying tickets on 16 November, you will still need to pay a £75 deposit and the £5 booking fee along with your coach fare.
When purchasing general admission tickets on Sunday 5 November, you will just have to pay a £75 deposit and £5 booking fee.
Keep in mind, this is the cost per ticket, so if you are buying six tickets, you will need to pay the deposit and booking fee for each one.
You will then need to pay the remaining cost of your ticket(s) in the first week of April 2024. That’s £280 per ticket.
How many people will be trying to get tickets?
More than 2.5 million people tried to get their hands on the 135,000 tickets on offer last year, according to National Broadband.
The ticketing service which deals with Glastonbury, See Tickets, experienced technical problems last year during the sale window on 6 November, later apologising to people who had “issues trying to book”.
They didn’t specify whether this was due to the amount of website traffic.
Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis apologised afterwards to the “huge number” of people who missed out because “demand far outstripped supply”.
We know from Ms Eavis that some 2.4 million people were registered for Glastonbury tickets at the end of 2019, too, so this level of demand is not an anomaly.
When will I receive my ticket?
General admission tickets will be sent out in late-May or June 2024 to those in the UK and the EU.
People who bought a ticket plus coach package will have to wait until they are on their coach to be handed their tickets.
If you live outside of the UK and EU and buy a ticket, it will be available for box office collection unless specified otherwise.
What if I get tickets but can’t make it to Glastonbury?
Don’t panic; that’s what the resale window is for.
If you realise after buying tickets that you cannot attend, simply don’t pay the remaining £280 that you owe per ticket before the deadline: 11.59pm on 7 April 2024.
Your deposit will automatically be refunded to you, minus a £25 administration charge.
There’s an extra £15 coach cancellation fee on ticket and coach bookings.
Your ticket will then be resold to someone else during the next window.
You can also request a refund any time before Friday 3 May 2024 via See Tickets’ Customer Service Page.
From 3 May onwards, tickets are non-refundable.
Do not attempt to sell tickets on yourself. As stated previously, all tickets are personalised and cannot be transferred to another recipient.
What is included with a ticket?
Here is a list of everything Glastonbury says is included with a ticket:
• Entry to the festival, with over 3,000 performances across more than 100 stages
• Five nights camping (with no early entry fees)
• Free programme
• Free mobile phone charging
• Free on-site newspaper
• Free mobile app
• Free firewood
• Kidzfield, where all entertainment, rides and activities are free of charge
• Support for Oxfam, Greenpeace, WaterAid and “hundreds of other worthy causes”
• Funds to improve the festival’s infrastructure and environmental impact