We allocate random queue positions to ensure fairness for customers. Although this may not immediately seem the fairest method, bear with us and we’ll explain:
First-come-first-served:
Pros | Cons |
Those arriving early are given a spot at the front of the queue | Touts often try to use bots to buy up tickets and sell them at a huge markup on secondary ticketing websites. These bots are incredibly fast and would reach the queue in less than 0.1 seconds, much faster than a human. As such, the front of the queue would be full of bots (see more info about bots in our FAQs). |
| The open time for the queue would become extremely busy, with 10,000s of customers all trying to land on the queue at the same time. Your chance of being at the front of the queue would be almost random as the difference between being at position 1 and 10,000 could be less than 1 second difference. |
| Often the link to join the queue is emailed out. Most mailing list services are quite slow, sending emails out over 30 mins or so. Some send emails alphabetically, and some email providers will delay the messages appearing in your inbox. If your email arrives just 5 minutes later than other customers, you would end up at the end of the queue. |
| If your computer is slow, you’re on a phone, or your wifi is slow, even if you arrive at the queue just before it’s open, when you click refresh at 09:00am for example, you would load the page up slower than other customers, so you’d end up at the back. |
| You may be at work and not able to join the queue at exactly 9am, so again you’d end up at the back. |
In summary, first-come-first-served queueing only benefits touts with bots, and customers with very fast computers and internet, who can sit at the computer at the exact queue open time and receive their link immediately. The vast majority of customers don’t meet this and would be disadvantaged with little chance of purchasing.
Random Queue position:
Pros | Cons |
Touts with bots have no advantage as their extremely fast speeds provide no benefit. | Some people who arrive early expect to be at the front. |
There’s no rush to join the queue at the exact open time. Most waiting rooms are open for 15-60 minutes before the event, so as long as you join in that window, you have an equal chance to everyone else. |
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If your email provider is slow, it doesn’t matter, as long as you join the waiting room before the event goes on sale. |
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Customers with slow computers, mobile phones on 3G or patchy wifi are not at a disadvantage |
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As you can see, giving everyone a random queue position is by far the fairest method. Plus it’s less stressful as you’re not battling to be in the queue at the exact moment it opens.
By giving bots no advantage, we’ve found very few even attempt to join our queues.