Glastonbury is changing the way fans can buy tickets for the world-famous festival.
While the booking process itself will remain the same, the way people join it is different.
Organisers warned hopefuls to log in “at least a few minutes” before the sale opens on 14 November, to avoid refreshing the page and not to attempt to game the system by using multiple devices.
Fans must be registered by 5pm GMT on Monday 11 November.
Tickets for the annual event at Worthy Farm in Somerset cost £373.50 plus a £5 booking fee, and are sold exclusively through the See Tickets website, with no third-party sellers involved.
The sale follows chaos earlier this year when tickets for the Oasis reunion went on sale, seeing a multitude of disappointed fans as well as those who felt cheated after being charged hundreds of pounds more for their tickets than was originally advertised.
The festival website explains: “Rather than refreshing the holding page to attempt to access the booking page, this year, when the ticket sale begins (at 6pm or 9am respectively) everyone who is already on the glastonbury.seetickets.com page will randomly be assigned a place in a queue to access the booking process.
“Anyone who logs on once the sale has started will automatically be added to the back of the queue, so it’s important to make sure you are online ready at least a few minutes before the sale opens.
“Once you are in the queue, a progress bar will indicate how close you are to reaching the booking page.
“Please do not refresh this page or use multiple devices or tabs or you may lose your place in the queue.”
Pic: Glastonbury Festival website
Once fans reach the front of the queue and enter their registration details, they will be able to purchase a maximum of six tickets – but they will not have long to do so.
The site warns: “You will have 10 minutes to complete this page before your session expires, however tickets are not allocated at this point.”
It also cautions: “Do not attempt to minimise the tab or open new tabs. If you move away from the tab you are on your session may expire”.
The advice also says that if the amount of traffic on the website is particularly high, users may see a “reduced version of the See Tickets booking site, with a minimal holding page”.
It adds: “This does not mean the site has crashed”.
The crowd at Coldplay’s 2024 headline set at Glastonbury Festival. Pic: PA
The site discourages users from using multiple devices to increase their chances of getting tickets, warning it could actively harm getting through.
It says: “Refreshing the page, using multiple tabs or many devices can look like suspicious behaviour and can harm your chances of getting through by triggering anti-bot software; therefore you must stick to one tab/device per IP address and please do not refresh your page once you are in the queue”.
One exception to the refresh rule is if the message, “All available tickets have now been allocated” pops up, at which point refreshing the page will mean any orders that haven’t been processed will go back on sale, and so may become available to buy.
Once the message “SOLD OUT” appears, it’s game over, and no more tickets will be released back for sale.
Festival-goers leaving this year’s event. Pic: PA
There will be another chance, however, when any returned tickets go on resale in the spring, offering festival fans a second bite of the cherry.
While next year’s acts won’t be announced until after tickets go on sale, Oasis have already ruled themselves out of performing, telling fans: “Despite media speculation, Oasis will not be playing Glastonbury 2025 or any other festivals next year. The only way to see the band perform will be on their Oasis Live ’25 World Tour.”
2026 is likely to be a fallow year for Glastonbury (a year off), with the festival traditionally taking place four out of every five years, and the fifth year reserved for rehabilitation of the land.
Glastonbury Festival takes place from 25 to 29 June 2025.