My life is very boat related, but not everything is about the boat. I do occasionally step off the deck.
Recently I stepped off board and went on a train to London! No water involved, this time. We were going, with a couple of friends, to see The Iron Maidens in London.
They were awesome, everything you would expect from an Iron Maiden tribute band, plus more.
When I bought the tickets I put a lot of thought into what format I would like them in. We have a printer but it’s not easy to use. It is stored in a cupboard and not plugged in, so print at home tickets didn’t seem like a good option. We were booking tickets a couple of weeks before the show, so I didn’t want them posted, in case they didn’t arrive in time. That left the eticket option. Great- tickets purchased, and good to go.
On the way to London, I tried to download the tickets from the email. It looked like my phone had done it…
Once we arrived at the venue, I checked my phone for the downloaded tickets. The download had disappeared along with the email. Gmail seemed to be down, so it was only seeing certain emails- and not the one I needed! Our friends went in while we sorted ourselves out.
Thinking that the problem was a ‘lack of data’ problem we walked to a 4g area, but still couldn’t find the tickets. Next, we tried using WiFi at a coffee shop. My fingers were so cold they weren’t working properly, so I defrosted with a nice hot chocolate. But still, the email with tickets and the download were not there. 
For an hour or so, while Mr BBB and I were trying to beat my phone into compliance, our friends were in the venue, arguing with the ticket office! Our friends were saying that the venue could check that we had bought tickets, by checking our names. The lady in the ticket office was saying that she couldn’t. Absolutely not! We could have bought the tickets and then sold them on, and then someone would get in free. After a couple of phone calls, I suggested that I could show proof of purchase using the banking app on my phone. The ticket office lady was having none of it. Until my friend asked to see the manager- then the lady suggested we come to the office and she would see what she could do! She looked at the ticket numbers on her computer and checked the payment on my phone and let us in. It wasn’t impossible at all!
We walked into the venue as The Iron Maidens came on stage. They didn’t have a supporting act, so we didn’t miss anything! They played as well as Iron Maiden, and did an amazing show, with plenty of props and life-sized Eddies (Iron Maiden’s mascot). Ripping guitar solos, awesome lighting- a fantastic show!Check them out at http://www.theironmaidens.com/
A few days after we got home we checked the post and found two tickets for The Iron Maidens! I have no idea what we downloaded on the train, but it wasn’t the tickets! Oops!