Damian
04-04-07, 01:21 PM
I read this on an email list, thought it was vaguely interesting:
It can only be assumed that Eavis was referring to the new idea of pre-registering festival-goers and then printing a non-transferable ticket with a photo on (which did work quite well). The actual ticket buying process itself was not without flaws. Or one giant flaw to be precise: anyone who DID manage to get through to the website could buy as many tickets as they wanted, whilst others couldn't get through once.
Now as a technical-type person, this, to me seems utter madness, especially considering there has been a two-year break during which time a system could have been designed. Let us briefly consider the facts:
* There are more people who want a ticket than can get one.
* They will probably all be hitting the website a lot at the same time, in a mad, frantic rush for tickets.
So from a techincal point of view we need to protect the system that actually issues the tickets, so that people who do get a form up can actually fill it in and submit it. This will involve limiting the people who are connected to this website. Any logical being would therefore conclude a system thus:
* Users attempt to access ticket website.
* Some kind of load balance server queues people according to their ip / cookie information or some other cunning method.
* Once you get near the front, you are allowed to connect to the ticket server.
* Ticket server allows you to complete ONE transaction, before placing you at the back of the queue again.
If the queuing system could not be implemented (which could be the case if we think about shared connections, or people having to accept cookies), then at least the system should allow you to complete ONE transaction before kicking you back out to compete with everyone else to get back in again.
And there in lies the fatal mistake! It appears that this year the server was setup for 20,000 persistant connections, or similar, with a time-based timeout. Anyone who got in, stayed in, until they got all they wanted to get!
So i recommend that Michael Eavis and See Tickets bang their heads together and come up with a fairer method!
It can only be assumed that Eavis was referring to the new idea of pre-registering festival-goers and then printing a non-transferable ticket with a photo on (which did work quite well). The actual ticket buying process itself was not without flaws. Or one giant flaw to be precise: anyone who DID manage to get through to the website could buy as many tickets as they wanted, whilst others couldn't get through once.
Now as a technical-type person, this, to me seems utter madness, especially considering there has been a two-year break during which time a system could have been designed. Let us briefly consider the facts:
* There are more people who want a ticket than can get one.
* They will probably all be hitting the website a lot at the same time, in a mad, frantic rush for tickets.
So from a techincal point of view we need to protect the system that actually issues the tickets, so that people who do get a form up can actually fill it in and submit it. This will involve limiting the people who are connected to this website. Any logical being would therefore conclude a system thus:
* Users attempt to access ticket website.
* Some kind of load balance server queues people according to their ip / cookie information or some other cunning method.
* Once you get near the front, you are allowed to connect to the ticket server.
* Ticket server allows you to complete ONE transaction, before placing you at the back of the queue again.
If the queuing system could not be implemented (which could be the case if we think about shared connections, or people having to accept cookies), then at least the system should allow you to complete ONE transaction before kicking you back out to compete with everyone else to get back in again.
And there in lies the fatal mistake! It appears that this year the server was setup for 20,000 persistant connections, or similar, with a time-based timeout. Anyone who got in, stayed in, until they got all they wanted to get!
So i recommend that Michael Eavis and See Tickets bang their heads together and come up with a fairer method!