Watching FC Barcelona football match for the first time

First time I watched a football match was in Busan and it was really easy to get the tickets as we just bought really good seats over the counter on the day itself.

We finally booked the FC Barcelona (Top 1) vs Villareal (Top 5) game held last May 18, because it's the last match nearest to me in Barcelona.

Finding cheap tickets and good seats

Since I'm booking a few days before the actual game, the tickets from the actual site is already sold out. If you do a quick search, you'll end up with these 3 top websites:

1. Viagogo - displays total with fees
2. StubHub - displays only the ticket price, without fees
3. SeatPick - a consolidator of different websites, so you will be able to find Viagogo and Stubhub inside

Upon comparing them, you will end up with almost the same total. I thought Viagogo was 50 euros more expensive than the other 2 but Viagogo displayed the whole amount with the additional fees so I thought Viagogo was overpriced at first.

Since it was my first football match in this stadium, and there was only a 50 euro difference between the sides and the lateral, I went with the lateral seats. They won't display the actual seats but just the section, so there's also some sort of luck involved.

In the end, I chose StubHub because I was familiar with it and from my search, it has good reviews and some sort of protection if your ticket doesn't work.

I was just taken aback by the substantial fees taken by the platform. From 161 euros per ticket, it became 240 euros! Here's the breakdown:

After a few moments, I received the tickets in my email. The original names of the ticket holders were still in the tickets, but they said not to worry about it.

Some questions I had, which you might also have:

• What's the lowest price I can get if I booked very early? I didn't experience this first-hand but if you were to book on the official website, regular matches costs €30 - €70 while high-profile matches, which is what we watched, it starts from €100.
• If you booked last minute would it have been cheaper? I waited for the prices to go down last minute with the previous event - but the prices simply didn't go down by a lot, even 30 minutes before the game started. It just went down by 30 euros or by 20% and I think if you really want to watch, it's going to be a gamble whether you get a ticket or not.

Are there food and drinks?

First thing I checked is the food since the game starts at around dinner time (7pm) and I will be hungry by then.

Some questions I had and their answers:

• Can I bring my laptop? I usually do, but good thing I checked because big bags are not allowed. They said you can't even bring a regular backpack or a shopping bag. But when I got there, people who brought backpacks were able to go in so I think a big bag = luggage bag. And there are no storage in the facilities so if you can't bring in your bag, they simply won't let you in.
• Do I need to bring an ID? No one checked for my ID, they just scanned the QR code on the ticket.
• Can you bring in food and drinks into the stadium? Just food, drinks cannot. So it would have been okay to bring your own food from the groceries.
• Is there beer inside? Non-alcoholic beer only, which explains why there were people who were finishing their alcoholic beers outside before entering the stadium. Maybe they want to feel tipsy while watching?
• Is the food inside more expensive than outside? Yes, I bought hotdog from an outside vendor for €6, and it tasted better than the hotdog from the stalls inside, which costs almost the same ala carte but it was just a shitty hotdog.

Here are the menu prices when you go into the stadium. If you buy the drinks, they will collect €2.50 for every reusable cup, which they will return when you bring back the cup.

Getting to Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium

We were supposed to ride the bus from the subway station at Plaza Espanya, but as soon as we got out, we see a lot of people in FC Barcelona shirts walking as a crowd.

Take note that if the stadium was sold out, we are expecting 55,000 people travelling from all over so having a bus system that can support this many people is difficult, so we decided to walk with the crowd as part of the experience.

The walk was very scenic, with lots of vendors along the way. You won't notice the 20-minute walk because everyone is walking with you, like in a fun run.

Finding the gates and seats were easy, because together with the ticket, the following map is printed:

My Experience

Our seats were a bit in the middle so if we were late, we needed to go through a lot of people to get to our seats. Luckily, we were about an hour early so it was easy to get in.

• There were a lot of singing and chanting, but in Español so I couldn't participate exactly.
• During half-time, they gave free shirts to those who were nearer below
• I got to experience the wave! And it went around and around for about 4-5x
• There were no scoreboard and replays on the screen. Heck, there were no screens at all! Very old school.
• I had low network coverage in my area so I couldn't check the scores online