We are in Tuscany in late June, and were planning to go to Florence on the 24th to see the calcio storico. Does anyone know if tickets are needed to attend the match, or how seating is done. Any info would be helpful. Most of what I find on the internet is in italian, of which mine is not so good.

Calcio Storico sells out early (might already be sold out). I have not had good experiences in dealing with Italian ticket brokers for this event, so can't direct you to an outlet.

You might try something like TicketOne to see if they can help or go through a travel agent in the US.

There is a very elaborate procession of costumed characters and musicians that lead the players into the arena that you can watch wind through the streets, but they close off the plaza all around the arena.

I found this English language site with ticket info at the bottom of the description...hope this helps

florence.contexttravel.com/static/calcio.php?

Thank you for the link. I will call to inquire about tickets later today. Do you feel it will be more difficult getting tickets on the 24th because of the festival? I don't think we could make any of the other dates without drastically rearranging our schedule, but it might be worth it...

I have tried on two separate occassions when arriving in Florence in late May to get tickets and had no luck. Perhaps I just did not know the right spot to go or the right person but they were sold out both times.

The best I have managed was to watch the procession/parade and then the fireworks along the river later in the evening.

Good luck. If you do get tickets post where and how, ok?

quote:

Do you feel it will be more difficult getting tickets on the 24th because of the festival?

I would think so, but we've been shut out every year we tried to go (which hasn't been recently since our kids' school and baseball calendar is now such that we can't travel in June). The ticket offices were supposedly open on the street, but no one was ever there. We tried going through the Florence Tourism Bureau one year and that also failed (info we got from them on ticket availability was wrong).

The only year that we partially succeeded was a year that my wife talked her way past the entrance gate with our kids and left me standing outside for 2 hours (she is from Boston and has a lot of guts when it comes to doing stuff like that....I'm from the south and move too slowly for her sometimes)....our kids were about 10 and 7 that year and she left the match over concerns for their safety....lots of very physical interaction between fans and contestants which included the throwing of firecrackers at each other.

I've never seen scalpers on the street like you would see at an American sporting event either.

Might try a hotel concierge and see what they can do??