Buying a ticket in Spain is relatively straightforward, but there are still a few things to bear in mind:
- The most common way to buy tickets in Spain is at the ticket windows, in Spanish “taquillas”, of the stadium in question. Some Spanish clubs offer Internet booking services, but these are often not very customer-friendly and involve picking up the tickets at the taquillas anyway.
- Ticket sales generally starts in the week before the match and often only from a few days before the match. If you are in town and the stadium is easily reachable, you can pop by the stadium one or two days before the match, or else just buy the ticket on the gate. Few matches in Spain sell out.
- Bear in mind that the taquillas often close in the early afternoon hours (on non-matchdays) as is common in Spain. Sometimes they only open in the late afternoon hours.
- Spanish clubs generally publish ticket sales information in a news article on their website in the week before the match. It is wise to look this up to be sure of the on-sale date and opening hours of the taquillas. The Spanish word for ticket is “entrada”, and in combination with the match this is easily looked up. Google translate does the rest.
- Identification is generally not required to buy tickets, but it is wise to carry something anyway just in case.
- Tickets in Spain are expensive, in fact almost equally expensive as in England if you adjust for income. In particular if you want to see Barcelona or Madrid play away from home, you will have to fork out a lot of money as most clubs significantly raise prices for these two matches.