Welll....its always kinda been like that..The pit was never just for FC members.
In Dublin you get early entrance...but those who had queued early enough and are not FC members still got in as they gave out the extra wristbands to them.

It does suck the way this has been done for the UK this year. Nothing was announced for the FC members telling us what we should do...so a lot of people did as last time and bought gold circle tickets. Last time we were told you HAVE to have Gold Circle tickets to get into the Pit.