First Glastonbury tickets sell out in 30 minutes

The first batch of tickets for the Glastonbury Festival 2025 sold out in a record 30 minutes, organizers confirmed on Thursday. The tickets, which were for coach travel to the iconic music festival, became available at 18:00 GMT, marking the start of the highly anticipated ticketing process. Festival-goers had to navigate a revamped booking system, which was introduced this year to address ongoing issues with online ticket sales.

For the first time, fans were randomly assigned a place in the queue rather than needing to refresh the page at the moment the sale began. The new approach was designed to reduce the frantic scrambling that often accompanies high-demand ticket sales. Within 32 minutes, at 18:32, the official Glastonbury X (formerly Twitter) account confirmed that the coach travel tickets had sold out. Shortly after, the website updated to reflect the sell-out status, and See Tickets posted that confirmation emails had been sent to all those who successfully secured tickets.

The sale of standard tickets for Glastonbury 2025 will take place on Sunday at 09:00 GMT, with fans eagerly awaiting the next chance to secure a spot at the festival. The early sell-out of the coach tickets comes just a week after Glastonbury organizers announced changes to their booking process for 2025.

This shift in ticketing procedure follows growing concerns over ticketing practices in the live events industry. Issues such as dynamic pricing (where prices rise according to demand) and the reselling of tickets at inflated prices by touts have sparked widespread criticism. The debate reached a peak in September when tickets for Oasis concerts were released, prompting both the UK government and the Competition and Markets Authority to pledge an investigation into price surging and other practices in the ticketing industry.

In response to these concerns, Glastonbury has introduced several measures to combat ticket touting. One key change is that customers must now register in advance to purchase tickets, ensuring a more secure and fairer process for genuine fans. The registration system is designed to prevent scalping and reduce the likelihood of tickets being resold at exorbitant prices.

For Glastonbury 2025, tickets will cost £373.50 plus a £5 booking fee, an increase of £18.40 from the £355 price (plus booking fee) for the 2024 festival. Despite the price rise, demand for tickets remains extraordinarily high, as evidenced by the quick sell-out of the coach tickets. Last year, coach tickets sold out in just 25 minutes, and general tickets were gone within an hour.

The 2025 edition of Glastonbury will take place from June 25 to 29, 2025, at the festival’s iconic Worthy Farm site in Somerset. The announcement of the 2025 line-up is eagerly awaited, and festival organizer Emily Eavis has already confirmed that she is in talks with potential headliners for the event. Notably, Eavis previously announced that 2026 will be a fallow year for the festival, allowing the land to rest and recover before the festival returns in 2027.

The 2024 festival made history by featuring two female headliners on the Pyramid Stage for the first time ever: Dua Lipa on Friday and SZA on Sunday. Meanwhile, Coldplay made their own mark by becoming the first act in Glastonbury history to headline the festival five times. These achievements highlighted the festival’s ongoing evolution and commitment to offering diverse performances from some of the biggest names in music.

As the date for standard ticket sales approaches, fans will be hoping to join the ranks of those who managed to secure their coach tickets early. With the new booking system in place, it’s clear that Glastonbury is continuing to innovate in response to the challenges of high-demand ticket sales, while still holding onto the unique charm and excitement that has made it one of the world’s most celebrated music festivals.

As for those who missed out on the coach tickets, all eyes are now on Sunday’s general ticket release, where the frenzy is expected to be just as intense.