La Scala in Milano – Buying tickets online worked for us! Hopefully helpful instructions included.
Mar 23rd, 2006, 12:53 PM
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La Scala in Milano – Buying tickets online worked for us! Hopefully helpful instructions included.
A - Check the La Scala website to establish which future performance you want to buy tickets for and note which day they go on sale.
B – Familiarize yourself with all the aspects of the La Scala website. Look at the “Buy ticket on-line” instructions. Practice looking at ticket availability for operas already on sale. Note that when you click on “buy ticket” you are directed to the CHARTA service reservation site. See how far you can get on that site without actually buying tickets.
C – When the tickets actually go on sale, you will have to go on-line at the time appropriate to your time zone (it was midnight for us).
D – To expedite and facilitate your ticket reservation, reservation retrieval and ticket purchase, you will help yourself:
1) By going to the official CHARTA website a week or two before and reserving tickets for a non-La Scala performance (we reserved a ticket for an ice skating show). You will have to enter your passport number and other personal information at this time (but not your credit card info). It has to be a non-La Scala performance, as La Scala reservations have a limit for how many times you can let a reservation go without retrieving the reservation and buying the ticket. I recommend making two different reservations with two different passports so that there will be two of you in the CHARTA reservation system. You have 24 hours to retrieve these reservations and pay for them. If you don’t retrieve them, the reservation will be lost, but your personal information stays in the CHARTA system for quick retrieval next time you enter your passport number.
And
2) By having two people go online for ticket reservations at the same time and within shouting distance of each other or on the phone together. You need to establish ahead, the general theater area you want to sit in and the price you want to pay for seats. Each person should have the La Scala/CHARTA computer window open and be hitting the refresh button to see when the reservation system opens. When it opens, each should attempt to make a reservation. If one computer freezes in the process, the other can keep on in their attempt while the first one restarts the process (We only had one computer going and didn’t realize that things had frozen for us until it was too late. By the time we attempted again, we could only reserve tickets in the section where bottled oxygen is needed).
E – Once you have a reservation, it needs to be retrieved and paid for within 24 hours. If you both get reservations pick the best one and let the other one go.
VS
B – Familiarize yourself with all the aspects of the La Scala website. Look at the “Buy ticket on-line” instructions. Practice looking at ticket availability for operas already on sale. Note that when you click on “buy ticket” you are directed to the CHARTA service reservation site. See how far you can get on that site without actually buying tickets.
C – When the tickets actually go on sale, you will have to go on-line at the time appropriate to your time zone (it was midnight for us).
D – To expedite and facilitate your ticket reservation, reservation retrieval and ticket purchase, you will help yourself:
1) By going to the official CHARTA website a week or two before and reserving tickets for a non-La Scala performance (we reserved a ticket for an ice skating show). You will have to enter your passport number and other personal information at this time (but not your credit card info). It has to be a non-La Scala performance, as La Scala reservations have a limit for how many times you can let a reservation go without retrieving the reservation and buying the ticket. I recommend making two different reservations with two different passports so that there will be two of you in the CHARTA reservation system. You have 24 hours to retrieve these reservations and pay for them. If you don’t retrieve them, the reservation will be lost, but your personal information stays in the CHARTA system for quick retrieval next time you enter your passport number.
And
2) By having two people go online for ticket reservations at the same time and within shouting distance of each other or on the phone together. You need to establish ahead, the general theater area you want to sit in and the price you want to pay for seats. Each person should have the La Scala/CHARTA computer window open and be hitting the refresh button to see when the reservation system opens. When it opens, each should attempt to make a reservation. If one computer freezes in the process, the other can keep on in their attempt while the first one restarts the process (We only had one computer going and didn’t realize that things had frozen for us until it was too late. By the time we attempted again, we could only reserve tickets in the section where bottled oxygen is needed).
E – Once you have a reservation, it needs to be retrieved and paid for within 24 hours. If you both get reservations pick the best one and let the other one go.
VS
Mar 23rd, 2006, 12:55 PM
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When we went for tickets for the opera Lucia di Lammermoor, we had followed advice in an old thread; have one person attempting on-line reservations while the other tries the telephone reservation system. The telephone line stayed busy so we couldn’t get through and after we had chosen great seats on-line, we kept waiting for the confirmation of our reservation and it never came (this would have been the next page to open in the reservation window).
When we figured out that our reservation had not gone through, we began the process again only to find that there was very little left to choose from (it was about an hour later). We went ahead and reserved 2 seats in the 3rd row of the primary gallery, hoping we could get better seats the next night, when some would be returned for sale automatically if they were not retrieved for purchase within 24 hours.
The next night, we were on-line at midnight with two computers. I kept hitting refresh until some better seats had been returned and were made available. When 2 came up that were first row, primary gallery, I snapped them up. When I entered my passport number, the system told me that I could not reserve because I had used up my reservation chances! Next thing I know, those tickets are gone.
We decide to try it again with DW’s passport. We checked a little longer and 2 came up for 2nd row, primary gallery. Not the best but better than 3rd row so I went for them. While I am entering all of my DW’s info, she is on the other computer making sure that these seats have not gone back into the system (by hitting refresh over and over). While I enter info under her passport number as fast as I can she excitedly keeps telling me that I still have them (they hadn’t come up for sale again). If I had lost them in my process she would have snapped them up.
It turns out that we got the seats that we went for on the second night! I went on-line in the morning and paid for our seat reservations and printed off the receipt complete with barcode. We thought that we would have to present this receipt at the box office window earlier in the day of the performance, but one month after the purchase, we received our two tickets in the mail. We were not even expecting them!
VS
When we figured out that our reservation had not gone through, we began the process again only to find that there was very little left to choose from (it was about an hour later). We went ahead and reserved 2 seats in the 3rd row of the primary gallery, hoping we could get better seats the next night, when some would be returned for sale automatically if they were not retrieved for purchase within 24 hours.
The next night, we were on-line at midnight with two computers. I kept hitting refresh until some better seats had been returned and were made available. When 2 came up that were first row, primary gallery, I snapped them up. When I entered my passport number, the system told me that I could not reserve because I had used up my reservation chances! Next thing I know, those tickets are gone.
We decide to try it again with DW’s passport. We checked a little longer and 2 came up for 2nd row, primary gallery. Not the best but better than 3rd row so I went for them. While I am entering all of my DW’s info, she is on the other computer making sure that these seats have not gone back into the system (by hitting refresh over and over). While I enter info under her passport number as fast as I can she excitedly keeps telling me that I still have them (they hadn’t come up for sale again). If I had lost them in my process she would have snapped them up.
It turns out that we got the seats that we went for on the second night! I went on-line in the morning and paid for our seat reservations and printed off the receipt complete with barcode. We thought that we would have to present this receipt at the box office window earlier in the day of the performance, but one month after the purchase, we received our two tickets in the mail. We were not even expecting them!
VS
Mar 23rd, 2006, 11:01 PM
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Goodness VS, I think you worked as hard for those precious tickets as you did to earn the money to go to Italy!!
I am so glad that you were able to purchase the tickets, I remember you really wanted to see an opera at LaScala. What a fantastic evening you will have.
We were never able to get tickets unfortuantly.
Thanks for sharing your great news and also your thread will certainly be a tremendous help for any travellers going to Milan in the future that love going to the opera.
I am so glad that you were able to purchase the tickets, I remember you really wanted to see an opera at LaScala. What a fantastic evening you will have.
We were never able to get tickets unfortuantly.
Thanks for sharing your great news and also your thread will certainly be a tremendous help for any travellers going to Milan in the future that love going to the opera.
Mar 24th, 2006, 03:08 AM
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LoveItaly - Yeah, I wanted to get this report into the system for those future searchers that want to go for La Scala tickets.
DW and I are so fortunate to be seeing and doing all that we will on this trip. Mountains, museums, festivals, beaches, castles and the opera!
Thanks, VS
DW and I are so fortunate to be seeing and doing all that we will on this trip. Mountains, museums, festivals, beaches, castles and the opera!
Thanks, VS
Mar 24th, 2006, 07:48 AM
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It's important too, that you use IE (maybe Netscape) as your browser... I tried for almost an hour with Firefox before I realized that it wasn't compatible with La Scala's checkout process. OUCH! that's an hour I can never get back. I also discovered a limitation in my wireless phone's ability to store 10-10-220, then the La Scala # for redial purposes - I kept calling a poor sleeping guy somewhere. ooops! I'm going to try get a couple of tickets at the box office using the 2-hours-before-the-show suggestion that was kindly described here on these pages previously.
May 9th, 2008, 07:25 PM
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OMG!
Just came across this post!! It's fantastic. We had no idea that it was going to be this hard, we marked our calendar for the tix of la boheme going on sale on May 8. We marked it in our calendars months ahead of time but had no idea they would disappear so quickly. We tried to purchase them that day with no luck. Of course there are tix available through others but ridiculous prices. At this pt , we're considering using the rush lines (they release 140 tix 2-3 hours before the show)
Just came across this post!! It's fantastic. We had no idea that it was going to be this hard, we marked our calendar for the tix of la boheme going on sale on May 8. We marked it in our calendars months ahead of time but had no idea they would disappear so quickly. We tried to purchase them that day with no luck. Of course there are tix available through others but ridiculous prices. At this pt , we're considering using the rush lines (they release 140 tix 2-3 hours before the show)
Apr 17th, 2009, 03:52 PM
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Advice..we could only get the cheap seats in the nose bleed section but can anyone tell me if it is very hot inside and what the dress code is?? (Both men and women.)
any other hints would be most welcome. We are not staunch opera fans but when in Milan......
any other hints would be most welcome. We are not staunch opera fans but when in Milan......
