Tickets for next year’s Glastonbury Festival have sold out in less than an hour, as the website selling them struggled under the weight of massive demand.
Many angry music lovers hoping to snap up £243 tickets (including booking fee) from SeeTickets.com were left to stare at a message saying the site was unavailable as the 9am Sunday start time passed.
But despite the problems faced, See Tickets announced at 9.50am that all of the tickets were gone.
Festival organiser Emily Eavis, daughter of founder Michael Eavis, tweeted: “Tickets have now sold out. Thank you for your huge support and loyalty and we are sorry to those who missed out.”
This year there are no telephone ticket sales available, with all customers being directed to glastonbury.seetickets.com.
Fans who were unable to get on to the sales website took to Twitter to vent their frustration.
One ticket hopeful called Ciara tweeted: “Fourth year trying for #Glastonbury tickets and once again the page won’t even load. Every year this happens.”
Another called Mikey added: “Will they ever make the servers big enough that they don’t crash five minutes before the start lmao #Glastonbury.”
A £10 price increase on last year means festival-goers will have to cough up £238 plus a £5 booking fee for access to the 900-acre site, although fans are not asked to pay the full balance until spring 2017.
On Thursday, the coach package batch of tickets sold out in just 23 minutes with a number of fans experiencing website difficulties – and last year 120,000 passes were snapped up in just over half an hour.
Tickets for 2017 @GlastoFest are now SOLD OUT.
— See Tickets (@seetickets) October 9, 2016
Congratulations to everyone who got @GlastoFest tickets this morning. Confirmation emails are going out now.
— See Tickets (@seetickets) October 9, 2016
Sorry to those who missed out. @GlastoFest will have news of resales in the Spring.
— See Tickets (@seetickets) October 9, 2016
Miss Eavis had earlier on Sunday tweeted fans, thanking them for their “patience”.
See Tickets added: “Huge demand for @GlastoFest tickets this morning. Tickets selling so do keep trying.
“If you’re trying to book @GlastoFest tickets please stick to one tab/device only.”
Thank you for your patience. Tickets are selling (over half way now), do keep trying but stick to one screen please.
— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) October 9, 2016
Tickets have now sold out. Thank you for your huge support and loyalty and we are sorry to those who missed out.
— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) October 9, 2016
The festival will take its traditional fallow year after 2017, meaning those who miss out on tickets will have to wait until at least 2019 for the next event.
Mr Eavis previously said he “didn’t really want to have a year without a festival”, and claimed the event could be held somewhere else in 2017 or 2018.
However, last month organisers said there were “no plans to hold an event at another location in 2018″.
Those lucky enough to get tickets to the festival in 2016 were treated back in June to performances by Adele, Coldplay, Muse and LCD Soundsystem.
Next year’s festival will take place from June 21 to 25, with the line-up not being announced by organisers until spring.
