‘TOTALLY UNFAIR’
Glastonbury HACKERS made millions of queue-barging robot ‘ghost customers’ to push fans to front of ticket queue
The Sun spoke to one hacker as part of an exclusive investigation
GLASTONBURY ticket sales were targeted by hackers who created more than a million “ghost” customers to get to the front of the queuing system, it has emerged.
The highly sought after festival tickets sold out in less than 40 minutes on Sunday with hundreds of thousands of fans being left disappointed.
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But a probe by The Sun has uncovered a sophisticated system used by tech pirates to sell places at the front of the queue for between £70 and £100-a-pop.
A number of unscrupulous groups used software to create hundreds of thousands of queue barging robots which take up the places of normal punters.
When the ‘bots’ reach the front of the line they get a code which the hackers share to their clients - giving them instant access to one of the 143,000 tickets.
The Sun spoke to one hacker, a 21-year-old from London, who had 100,000 fake customers in the queue and gave out 500 free places to real people online.
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The computer whizz, who did not want to be named, said he did not make any money from it but did it to expose Glastonbury and sales firm See Tickets weaknesses.
He said: “Essentially it’s like people doing what they did years ago when they left a chair in the queue to hold their position.
“Once it’s their turn they just jump in.
“People put ghost users into the queue to get a better queue position.
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“I ran 100,000 bots but I know two or three groups that had 200-500 members and each of them ran 10,000 bots.
“You can multiply that out and the number can easily add up to millions or more.
“Real people don’t even make up half the people in the queue.
“It’s legal because you’re just joining a queue, everyone would do the same thing to increase their chance. This is not a guarantee of tickets but just increasing their chance to get one.
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"Some offered £70 for one person to access the channel, the other £100. They are now deleted but they ranged from £50-100 per access.
"There is so much demand for Glastonbury tickets. It's the only event that doesn't even announce the headliners for it to sell out."
Explaining why he did it, the hacker said: “I want See Tickets to make it fairer by implementing a system where they send a unique queue link that is tied to their registration ID, so people cannot join the queue more than the amount of registrations they have.”
Around 2.5million music fans are registered for Glastonbury tickets but a much lower number actually apply.
There were 143,000 customer tickets available for the giant five-day event held near Pilton, Somerset, which features world famous music stars.
Another Glastonbury ticket loophole this year allowed individual punters to buy up to 30 tickets each.
Once through to the purchase page, customers are limited to buying six tickets for their friends and family using their unique registration codes.
However syndicates using spreadsheets with multiple registration codes reported being able to “hit the back button” and return to the previous screen and order six more - in some cases up to five times, buying 30 tickets.
'OUTRAGEOUS'
Regular attendee Amanda, 60, from Wiltshire was unable to get a ticket this year and became aware of the “bot scam” and syndicates operating.
She said: “I’ve been going for over 35 years and it’s become harder and harder to get tickets.
“These queue scams are outrageous and just stop your average person like me from getting them. If you are tech savvy and can get access to someone with bots you can almost guarantee a ticket.
“Glastonbury and See Tickets should be doing something to stop this. It’s totally unfair and is ruining it.”
The Sun found dozens of people on social media site Reddit reported using the bot scam to get their tickets.
The Eurovision finals in Liverpool last year were also targeted by scammers using the queue jumping bots.
They have also been used to hit other in-demand items such as designer trainers and new games consoles.
Glastonbury backlashes
Glastonbury Festival has been going for 54 trailblazing years - but at times it has been a stormy ride Here, we look at the biggest backlashes to hit the iconic music event.
The Smiths (1984): One of the first bands to divide the early Glastonbury purists were Manchester indie stars The Smiths. The band's set even sparked a full scale stage invasion as they introduced the crowd to their guitar-driven, post-punk romanticism music. Guitarist Johnny Marr described their usual fanbase as "cup final supporters", adding: "Eventually, I did manage to instigate a stage invasion, which raised a few eyebrows. One fan was trying to climb on stage, I helped pull him up, and then a few more people followed, and all of a sudden we’d managed to turn it into a Smiths gig."
The Fence (2002): It wasn't a band or musician that sparked controversy in 2002... it was a fence. Organiser Michael Eavis came under fire when he organised the erection of a £1million fence around the site. The ring of steel was brought in to protect ticket holders and those who might inadvertently endanger themselves by breaking in. Diehard Glasto fans, however, felt it was at odds with the event's hippy ethos of peace and love. Eavis and co refused to back down, though, and the fence remains in place today.
JAY-Z (2008): Despite its long history, Glastonbury had never welcomed a rapper for a headline set - until 2008. Jay-Z's top bill booking was met with a flurry of digs, including some from Oasis's Noel Gallagher, who claimed hip hop had no place at the festival. In a perfect clap-back, Jay-Z walked out to a version of Wonderwall before launching into his powerful hit 99 problems. Seven years later, his pal Kanye West followed in his Glastonbury footsteps and topped the bill.
Metallica (2014): Thrash metal rockers Metallica were met with raised eyebrows when they were announced as Glastonbury headliners. Some critics claimed they lacked mainstream appeal, while others felt they were past their prime. However, frontman James Hetfield managed to quickly win the crowd round thanks to his good humour and polite manners.
Adele (2016): Although Adele wowed both festival goers and music fans at home with her headliner set, the British songstress did cause a stir by turning the air blue. She warned the crowd about her ";potty mouth" but not everyone was impressed with with the 30 plus expletives she dropped on the stage during her headline set, which aired on the BBC.
Glastonbury Festival said: “Glastonbury has long been committed to ensuring that tickets for the Festival are sold fairly and at face value to genuine, registered Festival-goers (who are then unable to sell their tickets on).
“This year, we made changes to the way the booking process is accessed, as part of that commitment to making the process as smooth, robust and fair as possible for all.
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“We take seriously any suggestion of these systems being exploited and are working with our ticket sellers, See Tickets, and their service providers to review and combat any alleged attempts to bypass or manipulate the queue process.”
The Sun attempted to contact See Tickets for a comment.
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