The various conditions to keep the concert type events safe means that the audience for any events has to be controlled and that involves tickets. Most of the events are free so the tickets are called invitations but, nonetheless, you need to have one in your hand to get to see or hear the event. We've had to get the same sort of thing for months, and nearly years, now at lots of venues but mostly the bookings have been possible online. That wasn't the case for Pinoso.
As well as the fiesta events next week there was a concert by a local choir yesterday and the town band have a concert today. I got the band tickets by going to their office one afternoon. A bit of a trek but easy enough. I went to ask at the Cultural Centre about the choir concerts at the beginning of the month and I was told I was too early. I tried, unsuccessfully, on two separate occasions later in the month to get the invites. The main problem was that nobody seemed exactly sure when and where I should go to get the tickets. In fact, on the night, there were tickets on the door and the space for the outdoors concert was enormous so it was dead easy to keep our distance. The audience capacity of the venue was much, much greater than the size of the audience.
To get the fiesta tickets I went to the Town Hall at the beginning of last week and I was told they would be available later and that there would be an announcement on one of the various online channels that the Town Hall uses. I saw no announcements but I went back anyway a few days later to find a long queue for tickets. The local mayor and the councillor responsible for fiestas were handing out the tickets. A bit extemporised or what? I waited about 20 minutes and got tickets for two of the three events I wanted. The process was inevitably slow because they were taking names and phone numbers just in case there was a need to follow up after an outbreak. For the tickets for the third event I was told to come back tomorrow. Tomorrow was Friday. On Friday I was told Monday. No queue the second time at least.
This is how it always used to be in Spain. Things having to be done face to face. Often you needed "inside" information to be more successful. Nowadays it's not usually the case. Even in Pinoso I was able to get tickets at least one event, a theatre performance, during the fiestas, online.
Yesterday evening, late, I realised my bank card wasn't in my wallet. Pit of the stomach feeling. I searched high and low. Not a sign. My banking app told me there were no dodgy movements and it was easy to suspend the card using the same app. It seemed though that I needed to phone someone to definitely cancel the card and go to a branch to get another one. I tried the free-phone number to report the loss and got a message to say there was a fault with the number and to try later. The extra stumbling block, after psyching myself up for the call, was most unwelcome. Spanish on the phone still can't be counted amongst my strengths. I went back to the website to check how to cancel and renew lost cards. They had a video. I clicked here. I clicked there. Within seconds the website tells me that I've successfully cancelled the card and a new one is on its way. The process I expected to be difficult, and was the last time I did it, was easy peasy whilst something I'd expect to be a piece of cake, getting a couple of event tickets, took eight visits.
Such, as they say, is Life in Culebrón.
