How I get Glastonbury tickets (almost) every time

No-one believes me when I tell them I didn’t wait in a queue to buy my tickets for Glastonbury last year. But it’s true.

I logged on to the See Tickets website ready for the annual panicked slog, clicked through expecting to join the thousands-long queue and was thrust straight onto the ticket page. After deciding that no, I wasn’t being scammed, I entered my card details and had my ticket (along with a seat on a coach from Manchester) secured within two minutes. Don’t ask me how – the Glastonbury gods were shining down on me that day and I’d rather not question their methods.

That’s by far my most exciting Glastonbury ticket story. The three other times I’ve managed to secure a spot in the Eavis’s cow fields have been (not to be dramatic or anything) traumatic, but not as scarring as the many more times I didn’t make it through. There really is no worse feeling than sitting through all three sales – coach, general and resale – to come away empty handed, convincing yourself that watching it on the BBC from home is better, actually.

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The battle for tickets to the best festival in the world (don’t fight me on this), is famously a stressful, anxiety-inducing struggle. Tickets sell out usually within half an hour, but the time spent waiting to be sent through to that blessed booking page can feel like an endless purgatory.

But there are ways to increase your chances of getting tickets…

My first tip feels counterintuitive: don’t have multiple tabs open. I know, surely more tabs = more chances, but that’s not actually the case. It just makes the website confused and will actually end up making you more likely to get chucked out of the queue (something to do with caches and algorithms that is beyond my internet knowledge).

Instead – and this is easier said than done – it’s better to have more than one device, each with one tab in one queue. So, if you can, get your phone, your laptop, your nephew’s iPad (essentially anything that will connect to the internet) ready to go. For clarity, Glastonbury does advise against this as it “doesn’t reflect the ethos of the festival”, so follow my advice at your own risk…

It also helps to have loads of (kind, organised) mates who are also trying to get tickets. You can buy up to six tickets per transaction, so if each person joins the queue, then your chance of getting a ticket has been increased. Sure, it means there are more people attempting to get tickets, but the Glastonbury sale (along with your birthday) is the one time of the year you’re allowed to be selfish.

What happens if, God willing, you do get past the queue? You’ll be taken to a page where you can input which tickets you want, your registration details (that’s your email address registered to your Glastonbury account, your postcode and your registration number) and your card details. If you’re unsure of your registration number or which email address to use, go to the registration lookup site – glastonbury.seetickets.com/registration/lookup – and they’ll email your details over.

I can’t tell you how important it is to have these to hand; the last thing you want to be doing is scrambling around for your card number under that immense pressure. Have them written down in a document somewhere so they can be easily (and, crucially, quickly) copied and pasted. If you’re buying for others, make sure you have their details too – and that they have yours.

Today’s sale at 6pm (Thursday 16 November) is for the coach tickets and a large majority of those joining the queue (expected to be around 135,000) will be after “Wednesday” tickets. It makes sense – you can score a great pitch for your tent, enjoy the evening fireworks, and watching the sunset on the first official night of the festival is a Glastonbury tradition. But you’ve got a much higher chance of actually getting there in the first place if you take the hit and go straight for Thursday tickets – that’s how I skipped the queue entirely last year.

It’s important to note that you will have to get on the coach you book in order to receive your ticket (and therefore entry into the festival), too.

Sunday’s general sale (9am, 19 November) will be even tougher, as that’s when most of the hopeful festival goers will be attempting to get tickets. Patience and calm are key, and while tickets usually sell out within an hour, that doesn’t mean you should give up hope. Some ticket transactions simply don’t go through – cards are declined, internet issues interrupt transactions and various other infuriating problems occur – and last year, a group of my friends managed to buy tickets half an hour after See Tickets had announced the festival had sold out.

In the end, it really does all come down to luck. As long as you’re registered and go to the right website (glastonbury.seetickets.com), you have just as much of a chance as anyone. Good luck, and – God willing – see you down on the farm.