The See Tickets website has been overwhelmed this morning by a storm of festival fans, as Kendal Calling’s ticket presale went live at 10am following a huge second line-up announcement from NASS last night – though it does seem possible to successfully buy tickets after a few attempts.
Over 27,000 people signed up for Kendal Calling’s presale after an incredible line-up announcement earlier this week, which is more than double the number of tickets remaining. At 10:35am, organisers issued an update: “We’re aware of the ticket issues going on. Tickets are selling, please be patient and keep trying. See Tickets are working to get people through faster.”
Also at 10am today, Sound City Liverpool revealed The Reytons as their Saturday headliner. With the independent band gaining momentum at an immense speed and about to secure their first UK number-one album, the news likely sent hordes of their fans straight to the See Tickets page to secure their place at the event which won Best Metropolitan Festival at the UK Festival Awards 2022.
It’s not just festivals affected, with tickets for gigs including The National and Pierce The Veil at Alexandra Palace also going on sale at 10am this morning. The official social media accounts for Alexandra Palace have been advising fans experiencing issues to try their Ticketmaster page instead, which appears to have worked for many users.
The See Tickets holding pages and error messages will be a familiar sight for anyone who has tried to buy Glastonbury tickets in the past, though it does seem possible to get onto the website with a bit of persistence – much less than is required for Glasto.
Other tours which went on sale at 10am today include Birmingham’s alternative four-piece The Clause and Manchester indie-pop band The Lottery Winners, with tickets for Le Tigre’s world tour also opening up today.
When a website experiences server issues due to high traffic, it is often because the website’s servers are not able to handle the number of requests being made to them at one time. This can happen for a variety of reasons, such as a lack of server capacity or poor server infrastructure – but even the best-equipped websites can struggle when a sudden deluge of music fans all try to buy tickets at the same time.
Additionally, if a website is not sufficiently optimised for high traffic, it can also struggle to keep up with the demand. This can lead to slow load times, error messages, and difficulty accessing the website. In the case of a ticket website, server issues can be particularly problematic because it may cause customers to miss out on purchasing tickets to an event they want to attend.
Ahead of Kendal Calling‘s presale today, they announced that Nile Rodgers & CHIC, Kasabian, Royal Blood and Blossoms will headline the four days of the festival taking place from 27th-30th July. One of the UK’s most beloved festivals, set in Lowther Deer Park in the beautiful Lake District, it’s set to be another unforgettable, must-attend summer in the fields.
NASS Festival last night announced a huge second drop of acts joining the line-up for 2023’s four-day festival of music, street art, skate and BMX. Headlined by trailblazing drum’n’bass duo Chase & Status (Live), hip-hop royalty Wu-Tang Clan and Mercury Prize winning Little Simz. Now, even more massive names have landed as NASS festival shapes up to be its biggest and best yet. Taking place at the Bath and West Showground, nr. Bristol, from 6 – 9 July 2023.
A ticketing website is more complicated to prepare for sudden spikes of heavy traffic than say, a news website because a ticketing website needs to handle many more actions and transactions. For example, when a news website has a lot of visitors, it just needs to show them the same articles and pictures on each page, but a ticketing website needs to handle the purchase process for each visitor, which includes checking availability, reserving the ticket, and process the payment.
All of these actions require a lot of communication between the website and the databases where the information is stored, and if there are too many people trying to do this at the same time, it can cause the website to slow down or crash. This is harder to prepare for than a news website, where the main task is to show information that doesn’t change much.
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