Sunday, 10 June 2012

Nailing tickets to the Last Night of the Proms


In recent years we have always tried to take in The Last Night of the Proms on TV . It might not be everyone's cup of tea however both Julia and I really enjoy that particular concert, what with all it's crowd interaction.
When we were based in London back in 2010 I completely stuffed up any chance of getting into the ballot for finals night.
So this year I decided to give it my best shot
Round one kicked off at 0900hrs sharp (UK time) on Saturday 12th May.
At that time yours truly and God knows how many tens of thousands of  other classical music fans all logged on to the Albert Hall website.
Actually, we couldn't all log on at once so the system sticks you in a holding line, that is, if you are one of the first five thousand to hit the enter button.
I was a bit slow out of the blocks and didn't attempt to log in until one minute past the hour so I received a message confirming that the queue was full and I should log back in later when traffic had slowed to a manageable flow.
As we were checking out of our accommodation at Pechboutier I had no option other than to drive off to our next destination of Belvianes et Cavirac and trust I wasn't too late to nail tickets to at least the required minimum five concert total, an order that would allow us to go into the ballot for the final night.
When some hours later I finally managed to get into the Albert Hall system  I started off at something like 3,800 in the queue.
No problem, I had free WiFi so Julia and I just kicked back with a couple of drinks and watched as the queue number slowly whittled itself down.
Maybe forty minutes on and I'm finally into the booking section.
Most of the good seats were long gone and one particular desired concert was already fully booked  however we managed to get half a dozen firm bookings so we were set for the Final Night Ballot.
On 1st June we received an email confirming that yes, we were lucky winners and if we logged in at 0900hrs on 8th June we could book a maximum of two tickets.
This time no more Mister Nice Guy!
When the clock clicked over to nine I hit the enter button, quickly booked two tickets. However, in my haste instead of selecting "quantity 2" I accidentally hit the "physically disabled" button and then to compound this fiasco I instinctively  hit the "quantity 2" button and for reasons I still can't understand then also requested two car parks (obviously I was looking for a safe haven for our two Oyster underground tube cards).
Major meltdown time , I proceeded to throw the laptop into a suitcase and with Julia in tow stormed off to a wine bar, all the while castigating myself for being nothing short of a complete plonker.
A couple of hours later we returned to our room and I started the process all over again, however this time there was only a queue of around 700 in front of me.
When I finally enter the booking system I carefully steer clear of the physically disabled box, completely ignore any parking or restaurant requests , hit the "quantity 2" button and when invited to select within a price range , immediately hit Best Available.
And blow me down, there were still two seats waiting for us to select at Tier Level 2 (a fantastic location) in a box just forward of the stage.
I just couldn't believe our luck.
Roll on September 8th
One more tick on our ever expanding Bucket List.

Cheers

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