Resold Glastonbury tickets gone

Michael Eavis has gone to great lengths to combat ticket touts

Thousands of returned tickets to this year's Glastonbury Festival sold in about two-and-a-half hours on Sunday.

The unwanted or cancelled tickets sold out by telephone booking by about 1130 BST, after going on sale from 0900 BST.

Organiser Michael Eavis previously said up to 20,000 tickets could be on sale, but exact figures were not available.

About 400,000 people pre-registered to buy tickets to the June event at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, which is allowed a capacity of just 177,000.

A festival spokesman said: "We're quite relieved about it and it seems to have been successful.

"We can now look forward to June 1 when the line-up will be announced."

Touts

Fans snapped up an initial allocation of 137,500 tickets in less than two hours when they went on sale earlier this month.

Tickets without coach travel cost £145, with people able to buy up to four each.

In 2005, tickets for the three-day event changed hands for up to £700 on the black market.

The event did not take place last year but Mr Eavis has said that this year's new registration system, which required people to provide a passport-sized photograph, appears to have stopped the touts.

The tickets will be scanned using an infra-red system at the entry gates to make sure the photographs have not been tampered with.

As a result, said Mr Eavis, internet auction sites like eBay and unauthorised ticket agencies did not appear to be offering passes for sale.

The Arctic Monkeys, the Killers, The Who, Kaiser Chiefs, the Kooks and Shirley Bassey will all play at the festival, which runs from 22-24 June.