General Information or How to Purchase Tickets for FC Barcelona’s Football Games?

Are you visiting Barcelona with your family or friends and also truly passionate about football? If so, you must go watch an FC Barcelona’s home game to get a taste of the best and finest football on the planet!

You will get to see the largest and one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, together with the thrilled home team fans! With its nearly 100,000 seats, Camp Nou is the largest stadium in Europe and combined with the always present audience, you will get the chance to have a once in a life time experience.

Before purchasing a ticket to one of the football matches, it is important to consider your best options. The price and availability of the tickets depends highly on the match that is taking place and the position of the seats. The seats that are located on the length of the stadium, closer to the middle line are more expensive than those that are located on the short side of the field, behind the goals.

Choosing a ticket for an FC Barcelona game can be quite complicated due to the many options and the variables that affects the price. If you are a young adult going to the game with one other friend, you will probably want the full “supporter” experience. Therefore, you should get a ticket from the team’s official website, and seat on the curve of the stadium, behind the gate, alongside the fans and the gallery. But if you are traveling with your family, you might want a seat on the length of the field, and buy your tickets from a broker and have them delivered to your hotel. We will analyse this subject in more detail in the following paragraphs.

Camp Nou is a big stadium that offers various seating options at a variety prices. Starting with cheap and simple tickets behind the goal, to more expensive seats right next to the field and close to the middle line, and very expensive VIP cards. Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes buying 3 or 4 seats next to each other can cost you extra, and if you are okay with sitting in separate parts of the stadium, an individual ticket can be bought at a discount.

The Dynamic of FC Barcelona Tickets on Camp Nou

There are basically 3 stages in a ticket’s life, and with each stage the ticket price increases a little bit:

• Stage one: The tickets are released to subscribed members, people who bought a full year pass (some are actually chair owners in the stadium for more than a few years). But a significant number of those members chose not to go to every game and then the unconfirmed seats for the game move to the second stage.
• Stage two: The tickets that have been unclaimed by the subscribed members move in the hands of the club members. This category is formed by a few million people around the world that are FC Barcelona club members, but they rarely go to the team’s games – except for unique cases. The tickets that are still unclaimed by the club members ultimately reach the public market (third stage).
• Stage Three: Any unclaimed ticket so far reaches the public market through the official website of the team. At this point, usually a couple of days before the game, tickets that could not be obtained before are available for the public at a very good price.

Buying a ticket from the team’s website is usually the cheapest and the safest way, but the main issue is that you can not always find the tickets you are looking for. For instance, if you are visiting with friends of family, finding 3-4 tickets right next to each other might be very hard. The ticket type you are most comfortable with might not be available up to the last minute, and not all the tourists will be willing to wait up to that point to buy a ticket.

Therefore, the alternative is to buy tickets from brokers and ticket websites. This is a market that has grown immensely around the football scene in Barcelona.

On one hand, they offer security in obtaining the tickets, peace of mind, and the certainty that the tickets will reach their destination as well as providing the option to book the tickets in advance, not only at the last minute. However, you must take into account the commission of those merchants, and the fact that ticket prices differences are sometimes in tens of percent.

Ticket Types

In this section, we looked at the tickets from a touristic and a marketing perspective and we separated them into 2 categories: The differences related to the game, and the differences related to the actual seats in the stadium.

Differences Related to the Game:

As previously mentioned, the ticket prices vary according to the importance of the match and the popularity of the team that FC Barcelona is facing on the field.

• Tickets for the First National League (La Liga)

  Getting tickets for the First National League (La Liga) when the matches are being played at Camp Nou is not difficult given the capacity of the stadium. Every game has a different importance to the team, as well as its supporters. Therefore, if you are planning to attend a game against a random team which is not Real Madrid or Atletico Madrid, you should not experience any problems in buying a ticket directly from FC Barcelona’s official website (www.fcbarcelona.com) at a standard price, since the stadium is almost never at full capacity when it comes to games of this caliber. However, there could be exceptions to this “rule”, so it is better to be prepared.

• Tickets for Cup games

  When it comes to various Cup games, finding tickets is also relatively easy, since the importance is not very high and the teams do not pose a significant threat. Tickets for the National Cup (Copa del Rey) and Pre-Season games will be more easily accessible than League games and they will also be cheaper. You may encounter some problems or difficulties in getting these tickets only in case the team managed to get through the first rounds in the National Cup and is about to approach the final. In this case, the chances of facing bigger teams like Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla are higher and the demand on the tickets is higher. In accordance, the prices will be higher as well.

• Tickets for the Champions League

  The ticket dynamic for the Champions League games is very different from regular tickets. On one hand, you have the early group stage, also known as the home stage. For these games the prices are similar to those for regular league games against teams from the upper half of the table. On this stage, the tickets are easy to spot on the team’s website once they are available, and you should not have any trouble finding cheap ones. On the other hand, you have the late stages, the eights, and the quarters where tickets are harder to find. The further the team climbs towards the final, the more important the matches become and therefore more and more people want to attend these games. In such cases, because the stadium reaches over 70 percent occupancy, finding cheap tickets on the team’s website turns into a difficult task. For these games you might want to consider looking for tickets on broker websites or websites like Viagogo or Ticketbis, especially if you are looking for seats closer to the field or you need more than 2 tickets. Even though they might not happen every year, the semifinals have an impressive impact on the availability of the tickets. Here, the ticket dynamic is very similar to El Clasico, meaning that the stadium is almost at full capacity and the tickets are very hard to find at the last minute. In such situations, we recommend buying tickets in advance from a broker, or at website like Viagogo or Ticketbis, especially if you want to buy more than 2 tickets.

• Tickets for the El Clasico

  Tickets to El Clasico are very difficult to acquire, regardless of the ticket type. Games versus Real Madrid, (and in the last couple of years Atletico Madrid), are in high demand because of the importance and the rivalry between the three teams. Tickets are, in most cases, even harder to get than Champions League tickets for the middle to late stage games. The stadium is almost at full capacity because subscribers will usually claim their seats. Because of this, we strongly recommend using ticket brokers and merchants like Viagogo and Ticketbis, especially for high demand seats, and also if you are looking for more than 3 tickets.

Differences Related to the the Seating Area:

The stadium, like it was mentioned earlier in this page, is divided into sectors and 4 levels (rings). To make it easier for people who are not very familiar with how stadiums work, we will divide them into long sides of the pitch and short sides.

Generally speaking, the closer the seat is to the field (lower ring) and the middle line (the middle of the field), the higher the demand is, and therefore the more expensive the ticket price for that particular seat will be. But the choice is not always revolving around the ticket’s price.

For example, if you just want to enjoy a football match with your kids and family or even friends without being involved in any sort of choirs or other distractions, it is preferable to get the tickets on the two long sides of the pitch, even though it will be slightly more expensive. If you are looking forward to mix yourself with FC Barcelona supporters and want to feel for once like a “Culè” (FC Barcelona’s most passionate supporters), you should definitely get a ticket on the short side of the pitch.

One thing is sure – no matter in which sector or ring you will sit, you are going to have an amazing time and a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Where Can I Order FC Barcelona Tickets?

FC Barcelona’s website

The first recommended option for you to check out is the official website of FC Barcelona. Tickets are always available on FC Barcelona’s website a few days before the game. This is probably the cheapest way of getting tickets. However, as we stated previously in this article, this might not be the ideal method to purchase tickets when it comes to some of the tourists. When it comes to tickets to games that are in high demand, or you want to buy 3 or 4 tickets together, the club’s website will not be able to fulfil this demand. It is highly recommended to use this method because most of the times there should be no problem in finding your desired ticket, since in most instances the stadium is only at 50-70 percent occupancy. At the same time, you save money since there is no need to pay any commission associated with third party dealers and merchants.

Agency and Broker

Going through an agency is probably the easiest and stress-free way of getting tickets. The price is much higher than tickets bought directly from the box office or the team’s website, but it grants you a customer service and it is immediate. In addition, for highly sought-after games and special circumstances, like attending a game with your friends and sitting together, this is sometimes the only sure way to purchase the desired tickets.

Tickets Commerce Platforms like Viagogo or Ticketbis

Getting tickets through such platforms is very easy, immediate and grants you the ticket ahead of time, just like agencies, but it does not provide customer service. It is very important to point that out, although you can obtain a number of worthwhile offers and an extensive supply of tickets using these platforms – it is highly recommended to check beforehand to see if the platforms are suitable for you. We recommend them mainly for ordering e-tickets (less recommended to order tickets that will be sent to your hotel – mainly because their customer service is not at the level of the agencies). We also consider them more than suitable for tourists that possess an average or higher than average technology orientation, in terms that they can manage the email customer service and know their way around platforms of this nature.

Box office

Like ordering the tickets from the FC Barcelona’s website, this option is cheaper but still difficult to get. In the digital world that we live today, we honestly see no reason to use this outlet when you can buy the same tickets directly from the club’s website (www.fcbarcelona.com). Here we are referring to the official box office of FC Barcelona; there are lots of other ticket vendors scattered all across the city, but between those and the dealer’s websites you can find the same prices for the same tickets.