Driift, the operators of last night’s (May 22) Glastonbury livestream event, have apologised “unreservedly” for any trouble caused, and said they’re making “no financial gain” from the event.
Thousands of fans who were trying to access the livestream at 7pm BST last night found that their unique codes were being flagged as invalid by the live-streaming platform. Staff were quick to notice and said they were “looking into the issues of invalid codes urgently” and encouraged fans to keep trying.
After issuing a statement apologising last night, Driift have now shared an expanded statement on the situation.
They wrote: “We are standing here today with the heaviest of hearts. Although many thousands of you were able to stream the event as planned last night, we are mortified that technical issues meant that many others were effectively locked out for up to two hours and unable to use your access codes.
Calling the issues “unacceptable,” they added: “Driift is not a tech business or a media platform, and we rely on a third party company for certain aspects of protecting the stream. This provider has now identified the cause of last night’s problems, and, although we are awaiting a full technical report, there were no subsequent issues for ticket buyers accessing later streams for North America or Australia.
— Driift Live (@DriiftLive) May 23, 2021
Driift then assured fans that there will be “no problems” with the two repeat streams of the event, which are set for today (May 23) at 2pm BST and 7pm BST.
The statement continued: “For last night’s failings, we would like to apologise to Glastonbury Festival, to all the amazing artists who gave their time to perform, and to all the backstage crew and partners who worked so hard with us over many months to make this historic show a reality.
“Most importantly, we apologise unreservedly to all of you who had your plans upset. We would also like to make clear that Driift is making no financial gain from this livestream event, and we hoped it would generate much needed revenue for the Festival.”
Reviewing last night’s event, NME wrote: “What would Glastonbury be without tearing your hair out and manically refreshing a web page in order to get there in the first place? Before fans are admitted into the fantastical world of the ‘Live At Worthy Farm’ livestream this evening, a vast number of them are met with technical difficulties immediately familiar to anyone who’s gone through the painstaking process of trying to nab a ticket to the legendary festival itself.
“As with the real-life Glastonbury, though, all frustrations melt away once you’re inside the fence. By far the most ambitious livestream event of the pandemic era, Live At Worthy Farm is a stunning evening of entertainment that makes us realise quite how much we’ve been missing over the last year.”
Live At Worthy Farm includes performances from Wolf Alice, Haim, Coldplay, Michael Kiwanuka, as well as the debut appearance of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s new band The Smile. Each set was performed at a different location around the festival site.
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