Glastonbury Festival organisers have apologised after the online ticketing service left thousands of customers empty handed.

Tickets for the June event went on sale at 8pm on Thursday, but 12 hours later the site was still struggling to cope with the huge demand for tickets.

"Due to on-going unprecedented high levels of demand on the pages hosted by our booking partner, it is likely that you will experience delays in accessing the Glastonbury booking pages," according to a notice on the Aloud.com website, the official online ticket agent.

"We apologise to those who may be experiencing access problems. Please be assured that we are doing all that we can to ensure that the maximum number of people can book at any one time for Glastonbury 2004," the notice added.

Festival organisers say they will be investigating the problems, which have reportedly forced some people to stay up throughout the night trying to buy tickets online or on the phone.

The booking system has been under extra pressure this year because of the organisers' decision to restrict ticket sales to two per person, in a bid to stop touts hoarding tickets.

An estimated 300,000 people have tried to access the site, and by 9am on Friday 60,000 of the 100,000 available tickets had been sold, according to the BBC.

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