Can a VPN Really Get You Glastonbury Tickets? (And Why I Put One on My Phone Anyway)

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Every year, Glastonbury tickets sale day in our house goes a little like this: Every device — laptops, desktop computer, phones — ready for the 9am scramble. Excel spreadsheet full of names, addresses and registration numbers, the boys on ‘refresh duty’, me frantically messaging to my sister to see how many green bars she’s on, and at least one person in our Glasto WhatsApp group swearing blind that a VPN is the secret to getting through.

I’ve heard this rumour for years, and I’d always nodded along without really knowing what it meant. So this time I decided to actually find out. Can a VPN really get you Glastonbury tickets?

The short answer is… sort of. The longer answer is more interesting, and it ended with me finally sorting out the security on my phone.

First, What Is a VPN?

A VPN (virtual private network) sends your internet connection through an encrypted tunnel to a server somewhere else. To the websites you visit, it looks as though you’re connecting from that server rather than from your own home, phone or table in Costa. It also makes it much harder for anyone on the same Wi-Fi network to snoop on what you’re doing.

That’s the useful part. The ticket rumours are where things get a bit muddled.

The Glastonbury Ticket Myths

“A VPN makes your connection faster.” Sadly not. Your connection is taking a detour through another server, so if anything it’s usually a touch slower. On ticket morning, a good home broadband connection matters far more.

Although my sister did once get us all tickets on dodgy Wi-Fi in a Travelodge in Stoke… so… go figure.

“Tickets are split by country, so pretend you’re abroad.” I couldn’t find anything to back this up. It seems to be one of those rumours that goes round every year. To be honest, the one about ‘if you live in/connect from Liverpool, you have a better chance’ probably holds as much weight: ie – it’s an urban myth.

“A VPN gets you to the front of the queue.” Glastonbury now uses a queue system that places you at random, so there’s no being first through the door anymore. Once you’re in, the advice is simply not to refresh.

Although. I have. And got tickets on the refreshed browser window, whilst the first window did nothing.

So Where Does the Rumour Come From?

This is the bit that’s actually true. Glastonbury advises people to stick to one tab or device per internet connection, and warns that running lots of devices at once from the same connection could get you blocked. Because a VPN gives each device a different IP address, some people use one to run several devices at the same time.

That said, the festival’s own rules are there to stop bots and touts, and the last thing you want is to be blocked from the sale altogether. That would be gutting.

Here’s something that surprised me though: your phone on 4G or 5G is already on a completely different connection from your home Wi-Fi. So one laptop on the broadband and one phone on mobile data counts as two separate connections, and you don’t need a VPN for that at all.

Where a VPN Genuinely Earns Its Keep

Anyway, once I’d done all this reading, I realised the tickets were the least of it. A lot of our life happens on Wi-Fi networks that may not be 100% secure.

At festivals. Between the charging tents, the bar Wi-Fi and the odd free hotspot, there’s always a network to hop onto. Public networks like this are exactly where you want that extra layer of protection.

On caravan sites. Anyone who’s read my caravan posts knows how much time we spend in Dolly. Caravan site Wi-Fi is brilliant when it works (and when it doesn’t, that’s a whole other post). But it’s shared with every other pitch on the site, and when you’re checking your banking app to see that you’ve not run out of spending money, that’s not always ideal.

Working on the go. Writing the blog, answering emails, keeping on top of orders for Mooks Design: so much of my working week happens on my phone, whether that’s in a café, on the train or at the allotment/ in the car waiting for the boys. Logging into work accounts on public Wi-Fi was something I did without a second thought. Not anymore.

How I Set It Up

I’d been meaning to sort out a VPN for my phone for ages, and all this ticket research was the push I needed. It takes minutes to set up: download the app, sign in, and switch it on. Now it just runs in the background, and I switch it on whenever I’m connecting to a network that isn’t ours.

The Verdict

Can a VPN get you Glastonbury tickets? Not in the way the rumours suggest, and the one trick that might hinder, rather than help your chances, so I’ll give that a miss.

But will I keep a VPN on my phone? Absolutely. Between festival fields, caravan sites and working from wherever I’ve got a spare half hour, it’s one of those small, sensible things I wish I’d done years ago.

As for ticket day, we’ll be doing it the old-fashioned way: one device each and fingers and toes firmly crossed.

Will you be trying for Glastonbury tickets next time round? Tell me your ticket-day rituals in the comments!