BB FANS

Saturday, 2 April, 2005 :BBC

Tickets for this year's Glastonbury music festival are expected to be snapped up within hours when they go on sale at 0900 BST on Sunday.

Organisers have vowed to improve the ticket booking system, which saw many fans frustrated last year as the website crashed and phone lines jammed.

Festival boss Michael Eavis has said the online system has been improved and the number of phone operators doubled.

The 112,000 tickets are priced at £133, with fans able to buy up to two each.

"I am assured the problems that the telephone exchange faced last year will not be repeated," Mr Eavis said, adding that holding the sale on a Sunday would also help.

Organisers spent a long time looking at ways to improve the booking system, he said, and decided the best way was to enhance their existing procedure.

Festival-goers will need to show photo ID, which will be matched with the name on their ticket, in an attempt to beat touts.

"I really think this is a positive move forward to stop unscrupulous people and companies touting tickets," Mr Eavis said.

He warned there would still be a limited number of tickets so some people would be disappointed. But those who were successful would have a "festival to remember", he said.

Sunday, 3 April, 2005 BBC

All 112,000 tickets for this year's Glastonbury music festival were sold in less than three hours on Sunday - a record in the event's history.
Fans rushed to snap up the tickets as soon as they became available online and over the telephone at 9am BST.

Organisers had vowed to improve the booking system, which saw many fans frustrated last year as the website crashed and phone lines jammed.

They said on Sunday that there had been no repeat of the problems this time.

Gigi Dryer, head of Aloud.com - the festival's ticket agent - added that the ticket sale had been a "great success".

"It has been the biggest and best planned exercise in live music event ticketing," she said.

"Now we hope that those lucky enough to get tickets have the best festival ever."

The Aloud.com website received 7.5 million hits from people desperate to get their hands on the tickets for the event on the fields of Michael Eavis in Pilton, Somerset.

The 112,000 weekend tickets cost £125, with fans able to buy up to two each. A further 8,000 will be sold in the Glastonbury area.

Mr Eavis said the ticket selling system had gone "like a dream" and beaten the five-hour target.

"The move to selling the tickets on Sunday was a really good idea as we have the exchanges to ourselves," he said.

"Selling the tickets in the day time was much better plan and people can now go and enjoy Sunday lunch and go to work tomorrow knowing they have or haven't got a ticket."

Organisers spent a long time looking at ways to improve the booking system. Aloud.com designed a bespoke system with extra bandwidth and doubled the number of phone operators taking telephone ticket bookings to 100.

Festival-goers will need to show photo ID, which will be matched with the name on their ticket, in an attempt to beat touts.

The line-up for the event, to be held in Somerset from 24-26 June, will be unveiled on 1 June. But acts expected to appear include Kylie Minogue, Coldplay and the White Stripes.

Last year, the BBC News website was inundated with e-mails from frustrated fans who were unable to buy tickets.

They said the phone lines were constantly engaged and it was almost impossible to log on to the website.

Around three million calls were logged on the day the tickets went on sale, with some 200 million redials.