More than any other festival, getting Glastonbury tickets requires the planning and stealth of an army operation. The fact that tickets must be registered to your name is both a blessing and a curse – it means tickets can’t be touted for extortionate prices, but it also means that you only have a few shots at getting a ticket. The pressure is seriously on.
This year, the line up is rumoured to include Taylor Swift and The 1975. It could all be lies and we might end up with Iron Maiden but that’s a risk you’ve got to be prepared to take.
Here’s how to give yourself a fighting chance of getting a ticket…
Don't go out the night before
I don’t care how cheap the drinks are or if the hot guy you’ve matched with on Tinder is DJ-ing – you need to bring your A-game tomorrow morning. (What are you still doing on Tinder anyway?) Even if you have every intention of just going out for ‘a few’, everyone knows that’s just a lie we all tell ourselves – no one’s ever actually done it. You will sleep through your alarm or wake up and throw it across the room for disrupting your drunken slumber.
Safety in numbers
This is not a one-man job. If you only designate one person in your group to get tickets then you are a fool. Apart from the practical implications, it’s quite mean to make your mate get up on Sunday morning while you snooze away. Also, if you didn’t heed my earlier advice about staying in, then you may need someone to stand in when you have to run to the loo to vom again.
Do not press refresh
The Glastonbury tickets website requires a zen-like patience. You will feel like you’re making no progress and you’ll have the urge to refresh the page – you did not wake up at the crack of dawn to be number 203 in a virtual queue. But pressing refresh is basically game over. This is another reason that not being hungover helps – you need to avoid rash decisions. Wait, what are you doing? Step away from the refresh button! Great, you’ve ruined everything and all your friends will hate you.
Consider buying coach tickets
Now, don’t screw me over by snapping up all the coach tickets, but from personal experience they can be easier to get. The only thing that’s kind of stressful is that they don’t give you your ticket until you get on the coach. But you just have to trust it will all be OK. When you get on the bus, the driver hands out envelopes to everyone and it’s kind of like Christmas morning, but in June, on a coach in a car park. Coach tickets also come out a few days before general sale so you can feel smug while everyone else scrambles to get tickets on Sunday morning.
Don’t forget to register
For goodness sake, register. Yes, it sounds obvious but this catches out at least a few people I know every year. If you aren’t registered, none of this advice can help you and you will hate your life when you’re stuck at home while all your friends are Instagramming pictures of their muddy wellies/Glasto wristbands/drunken selfies in Shangri La.
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.