Glastonbury has introduced details of a new queuing system to purchase tickets for next year’s festival.
The 2025 edition of the legendary Worthy Farm event is due to take place between Wednesday June 25 and Sunday June 29.
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As announced last month, the first batch of tickets will go on sale next week. Those who are registered can attempt to buy coach/ticket packages from 6pm GMT next Thursday (November 14), with the general sale following at 9am GMT the following Sunday (17).
General admission tickets will be priced at £373.50 plus a £5 booking fee. After they inevitably sell out, a re-sale will commence in spring after the first 2025 line-up announcement.
In a new Q&A section on the official Glastonbury website, organisers have confirmed the introduction of a new queuing system on See Tickets – the event’s official and exclusive ticketing platform.
The view from The Park at Glastonbury 2024. Credit: Andy Ford for NME
Sharing information on “what’s new for 2025”, bosses wrote: “The booking process itself for 2025 will be the same as in previous years, however, the way in which you join the booking process is changing.”
It continued: “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.”
The instructions added: “Once you are in the queue, a progress bar will indicate how close you are to reaching the booking page.”
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Customers were then warned not to “refresh this page or use multiple devices or tabs or you may lose your place in the queue”. The update came alongside a series of screenshots showing how the new system would work.
It continued: “When you reach the front of the queue, you will be asked to enter the registration number and registered postcode for the lead booker and up to 5 other people for whom you are attempting to book tickets. You will have 10 minutes to complete this page before your session expires, however tickets are not allocated at this point.
“When you proceed, the details you have provided will be displayed on the next page.”
Additionally, customers may be able to use payment methods like Google Pay or Apple Pay this year – depending on the device used. However, tickets will not be allocated until your payment has been processed. You can find more information here.
See Tickets used a queue system for the upcoming Sam Fender UK and Ireland tour recently.
Similarly, Ticketmaster uses a queue for its big live shows and tours. Over the summer, hundreds of thousands of Oasis fans were held in long queues for the band’s 2025 UK and Ireland reunion tour. Many users also reported being kicked out of the queue after Ticketmaster falsely identified them as a bot.
Those wanting to buy tickets for Glastonbury 2025 can purchase up to six at a time via See Tickets only, and will need to pay a £75 deposit. Coach travel tickets will incur additional costs based on the journey prices. The remaining balance for the tickets will be charged in the first week of April 2025.
As mentioned by Glastonbury, fans have previously had to manually refresh the See Tickets website continuously in a bid to reach the booking page – which is usually extremely busy due to high demand.
For the 2024 festival, coach and ticket packages sold out in 25 minutes before the general ticket sale sold out in just under an hour last November. Every year, customers air their frustrations at missing out on social media.
Some have even called for a ballot system to be introduced, arguing that this would be a fairer way to allocate tickets. However, co-organiser Emily Eavis responded to these calls last summer.
“It’s been a discussion, actually,” she explained. “I think there are so many people on our database that are registered for tickets. And I think a lot of them don’t try as hard as [others].
“Half of them try really, really, really hard [to buy tickets] and half of them maybe try and then don’t – they’re not as bothered about coming. So I’m not saying… it’s hard to say the percentage exactly.”
Eavis continued: “And I think if we did a ballot, we’d end up with some people [getting tickets] who weren’t necessarily as bothered about coming.
“It’s really hard to say this year ’cause I know a lot of people didn’t get tickets, and they wanted them. But a lot of the time, people who really, really want them do get them through volunteering or through competitions.”
She added: “I know it’s hard, it is hard. It’s one of the worst sides to the job… there aren’t enough tickets for everybody.”
Eavis went on to say that organisers “can’t do anything about it” and “definitely can’t do two weekends” back-to-back like Coachella does. “We just couldn’t – can you imagine?” she explained.
No acts have been announced for next summer’s festival yet – but current headliner rumours include Sam Fender, Green Day, Olivia Rodrigo and Lady Gaga. There’s speculation around potential sets from Cher and Alanis Morrisette too.
Glastonbury Festival will have a fallow year in 2026, it has been confirmed.
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