A poster attached to the wall next to the Campana de la Pau explains in Catalan, Spanish and English the rules of the list to enter the Bruce Springsteen concert first, which works by the roll call method: those interested, all of them holders of a front court entrance, must sign up and come every day to “clock in” at the agreed times: eight in the morning, two at noon and eight in the afternoon, at which time the guard dissolves until the next morning. As the poster explains, during the night the list remains in the same place so that whoever wants it can sign up. Of course, you must write down the time you signed and take a photograph with the list that you must show the next morning.
When the time for the call arrives, all those registered form a line for the organizers to verify their presence, a job that becomes more complicated as the day of the concert approaches and the number of registered grows until it reaches figures of around a thousand people. . Precisely to facilitate this count, the number is written on the back of the hand.
This is a method known to all the fans, who for more than 20 years have been organized at all the concerts and apart from the other organization, the official one, to reward the earliest followers of the Boss with a privileged space in the track area closest to the stage, against the fence and a few meters from the musicians. “This time none of us knew each other,” explains Magira, one of the organizers of the list, about the way in which the list has been organized in Barcelona, ​​”but since everyone knows the rules, no one has thought it strange”
Of course, whoever fails in any of these hours to sign is automatically left off the list. “We are very strict, there are no favoritisms or cheating†Magira points out, because this Friday there will be a thousand people queuing up, and “you have to be very clear with the rulesâ€. This method allows the artist’s increasingly veteran fans to occupy a preferential space on the track without paying the high prices of a VIP area that dynamic prices have established in recent years.
When the concert is one or two days away, Springsteen’s team contacts the organizers on the list to give them instructions on what to do when entering the venue where the concert will be held. Among other things, they are informed of the space available in the pit, the fenced space in front of the track, information that allows them to know what is the limit of fans who can sign up for the list. The last step usually happens the same day of the concert when the followers listed on the list are identified so that they can exercise the right earned based on hours and discipline to remain a few meters from their idol for a few hours.
