Glastonbury Festival 2011 Sells Out in Just Four Hours

It's becoming a ritual almost as familiar as watching the sun come up over the Stone Circle or enjoying mulled cider at sunset but the annual rush to buy Glastonbury tickets was over in just four hours on Sunday, Oct. 3.

With over a million registered prospective applicants, only 145,000 people were successful in securing a ticket for next year's Glastonbury festival -- probably the most famous and popular outdoor music event in the world. With the none of the headline acts even announced, the fact that next year's tickets sold out in half the time of 2010's festival is a testament to the event's enormous popularity.

However, the purchasing process wasn't as smooth as had been hoped for and many ticketless applicants have been voicing their displeasure online. Tickets went on sale at 9am BST via ticket vendor Seetickets whose phone lines were engaged from the off while the huge volume of traffic to their website ensured that the site was inaccessible for thousands.

By 11am BST, just over half of the ticket allocation had sold out and two hours later all the remaining tickets had gone. Writing on the festival's Facebook page, co-organiser Emily Eavis said, "Sorry those of you who waited on the lines but couldn't get tickets. Wish there was a way to fit everyone in."

As previously reported by Spinner, the festival organisers promised to announce the line-up once the festival sold out but it remains unclear whether that means this week or next April when all the ticket returns have even re-sold. Michael Eavis -- the event's founder -- has stated that the three Pyramid stage headliners have already been booked with U2 favourites to fulfill the slot they vacated this summer after Bono's back injury forced the band to pull out.

Glastonbury 2011 will run June 24 to 26 at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset.