The Problem

In 2005, demand for tickets to a number of UK festivals has been very high, causing high profile problems for several festivals. The problem is that if people anticipate that a festival will sell out, they usually try to get tickets as soon as they go on sale. The resulting load is often too high for the festival's servers, or their ticketing or eCommerce providers, or phone lines, to handle.

The huge demand that the Glade Online Store received for tickets during the sale of our early bird/loyalty tickets caused our server to crash, and meant that we desperately needed some sort of system to control the number of people trying to buy tickets at the same time. Source: Ans Guise, Director

On the phone, this results in customers receiving the engaged tone. They hang up and try again, and repeat this process for several hours. On the Internet, this results in customers' requests for pages being denied. Customers then hit 'Refresh' in their web browsers, causing further load that makes the problem worse.

This often means that buying tickets becomes an ordeal, with angry customers trapped in front of their computers for many hours hitting 'Refresh' in order to get the best chance of receiving tickets.

The experience is even more frustrating if tickets sell out, as people who are not lucky enough to get tickets feel angry that their time has been wasted so callously by an unfair system.

Furthermore, due to the high volume of requests, orders are often not processed until many hours, or even days later, resulting in delayed Order Confirmation Emails, uncertainty as to whether orders have been placed, and cancelled orders.


The OrderlyQ Solution

We approached The Glade Festival after they had experienced problems with their private loyalty sale (to selected customers). We deployed the OrderlyQ system to protect their online Shopping Cart and eCommerce processes, by channelling sale-traffic away from their servers to ours, which are specially designed to cope with very high load.

OrderlyQ meant that everyone was held in a queue away from our server and allowed a gentle flow of buyers to pass through the system easily. Source: Ans Guise, Director

We deployed a Presale Page, indicating when tickets would go on sale, that at Midday on April 27th became a Queue Page, queuing customers on a first-come, first-served basis, and feeding them through to the Glade's Online Store at a rate they could handle.

We experienced a moderately high load on the Presale Page, as people were refreshing their browsers regularly to try to get in the queue as soon as it opened (which is normal, even when no queue is in place). Our server records indicate that nobody's requests were dropped, and that this load was well within our capacity. As soon as the queue opened, the load dropped tenfold, as people received their Queue Page, were told how long they would be waiting, and stopped hitting 'Refresh'.


The Results

The system was a success, allowing The Glade Festival to spread the sale over a nine hour period (when tickets sold out).

We loved the fact that people could be sent a text message when they reached the front of the queue, and that they could use a different computer once they were in the queue. Source: Ans Guise, Director

Customers were much happier, because they were told immediately how long they would be waiting, and did not have to spend this time in front of their computer - instead they could turn off their computers and do something else with their time until it was their turn to buy tickets. We even gave them the facility to sign up for a Queue Text, which we sent to the customer's mobile phone when they reached the front of the queue.

Because they regained control over the rate at which tickets were sold, The Glade organisers were able to process every order as it came in, so Order Confirmation Emails were sent immediately, and there was no confusion as to whether tickets had sold out, or cancelled orders.

Feedback was really positive and I think that many other festivals who sell their own tickets or indeed any online store which has a rush of customers that may risk their server blowing would find this really useful. Source: Ans Guise, Director

Despite the wait (maximum 4hrs 30mins), the OrderlyQ system was a big hit with customers as they no longer had to wait in front of their computers hitting 'Refresh', and people were genuinely excited to reach the front of the queue.

Here are some of the positive comments (there's been no negative feedback from anyone) made by members of the public on the various message boards where The Glade Festival is discussed:

I've got 2 minute left in the OrderlyQ! I'm very impressed with it!!!

Hey, just managed to get my tickets and I want to say how wicked the queing system was, no crashing, no overloading- at 12:10pm I got on a 4 30h queue and after that time, I came back, got on the site and bought the tickets! easy! no double clicking on the pages and no reloading... well done! Congratulations!!

The OrderlyQ system is a success then. Well done for implementing it.

Well done to the Glade management, the OrderlyQ worked a treat.

You have done a fantastic job. Even though I didn't need to use the queue the feedback has been excellent.

Yeah, got to say that the OrderlyQ system worked really well - I hope lots of other festivals and events start using the same system. Big up the Glade for giving it a go and to OrderlyQ for actually running the system.

By all accounts it does seem to have alleviated a lot of problems, and it's not like you're sat pressing refresh all day.

The queue is a good idea... it alleviates that whole "am I gonna get through, am I pressing F5 fast enough, argh" feeling that accompanies situations like this.

Hopefully we'll see something like this for glasto next year then! Splendid.

That OrderlyQ thing looked sweet especially after the Glastonbury Fiasco.

Let's hope Glasto really are paying attention for 2007

I think it's brilliant that the Glade folks took on the queue suggestion. Nice one guys!

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