We attempted to make sense of a Russian box office. On the foolish quest to get a ticket for the semi final dress rehearsal this afternoon. Many dozens of others had the same fruitless aim. Everyone crowded round the various windows. My experience of box offices around the world has been: you ask for tickets, you give them money, they give you tickets. It can’t be that hard! At one point the servers completely ignored everyone and left a big scrum waiting. When they did come over they took about half an a hour serving each individual. I only actually saw one person walk away with tickets. One person had two confirmation slips. After about 10 minutes the lady at the counter fiddled with her computer and decided to give them their tickets for the first slip. She did the same with the second and then got on the phone. Obviously it was too difficult. Eventually after nearly 20 minutes, she gave them back the piece of paper without an explanation and without tickets. Computer says NO. We gave up and retired hurt to the press centre once again….
Honestly I’ve no complaints about the way we’ve been treated whilst in Russia but if they want to be taken seriously as a modern European country they really need to get their act together. This was a pathetic shambles harking back to the accreditation queue. Eurovision has come it’s closest to being transmitted from a third world country today!