CFT Friends Online Booking: Computer Skills Test.

 

This is the day that I have been preparing for, and even done a bit of training for as well. This morning at 9 am online booking opened for the Festival 2017 at the CFT. This opening slot if for ‘Friends’ of the Chichester Festival Theatre. That means that they are the one who are such uncontrollable luvvies that they have fallen for the Friends Scheme. This means that they have without the use of The Rack or Thumbscrews, they have already coughed up £ 35 to be called a Friend and more than likely given in to the additional request for a donation to the CFT. By becoming a friend the biggest perk that a simple mind like mine can make out, is that you are given a few days ahead of the rest of the theatre going public to buy your tickets for the year in the priority booking period that opened at 9am this morning.

 

So a number of times this last week I have had practice runs at how quickly I can Log In. And, yes I did change my password to something that I did not have to look up in my secret places, this has to one that you can just bang out without thinking.

So our usual early Saturday morning turbo session was put on hold because my husband knew that I would be desperate to join the rush to get your preferred seats. Steve and I have had a number of sessions working out preferred dates in the diary for our preferred productions this season.

We made a plan earlier this week and I printed it out in great big letters to have to hand when the big moment came. Steve gave me my first call at 8.30 am to make sure that I had everything right by the computer in readiness. Further calls came at 8.40 am and then 8.50 am. From that moment I had one minute calls as I sat in wait.

There have been several letters from the CFT to prepare Friends for this day advising them to practice logging in and telling them that once logged in they would have twenty minutes to book the their fist choice of tickets and when they were in the basket, they would have a further twenty minutes for the next and the next choices.

 

I think it would be fair to say that most of the ticket buyers at Chichester have grey of white hair, unless coloured like mine. So these same set of older people are expected to have computer skills. OOHHH!

Some of them it seems are a bloody sight better than me at that lark because even though I was backed up by my husband so that I did not fall apart under pressure; by the time I had logged on I was advised that I was number 134 in the queue and that it would update every 10 seconds which it did not. The palms of my hands started to sweat at that stage!

I did not manage to get my favourite seats for the first production I tried for but did get three seats in the second row. That was for a new UK production of Caroline, Or Change, starring Sharon D Clarke in The Minerva Theatre, we will be celebrating our 38^th wedding anniversary on that night. Sharon D Clarke was also in Ghost, the musical and is a well know singer and actor.

Then I tried for the big summer musical production, Fiddler on the Roof starring Omid Djalili, and got three seats in the front row for August 14^th …. Whoopppeeee! That will be my 78^th birthday celebration taken care of. Omid Djalili will be superb I am quite sure, I am already looking forward to that.

Lastly for today, I booked a World Premier of a new play called Quiz written by James Graham that is on in November.  Second row again as all the centre front seats had gone. Yes, I booked for the World Premier of a play that I have no idea what so ever who will star in it, since they are as yet unnamed. This is an act of faith in the CFT, they have my trust, earned over many years of it being my best night out venue and that is only twenty minutes from my home. Many of the CFT productions travel straight up to Town for West End openings after Chichester.

I will make more bookings later no doubt since I seem to visit more in the winter than the summer; saying that when it is only just the earliest springtime as yet confirmed only by the Daffodils. 

So a big sigh of relief was sighed and Steve and I were free to carry on with a customary turbo training session upstairs. This morning was again the Saturday Musical session and we set up to watch, Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat. Steve enjoyed this more that last weeks DVD of Jesus Christ Super Star. Donny Osmond was delightful as Joseph and Maria Friedman was brilliant as the Narrator.

I do find it terribly annoying when as was the case with this 1999 film production, that they place the couple of big known names and do not add the person who is indeed the co star on the cover of the DVD. Joan Collins part was minute and David Attenborough only played Jacob, not really a singing part. Joseph took us almost all the way through our turbo session this morning before we had to switch to Saturday Kitchen for the last twenty minutes.

I realise that I missed off posting the Friday swim schedules yesterday, so here they are for anybody to try out on their own swim people.

Lane 1
Distance	Clock	Swim Rest
200	60	3.30
400	30	6.20
200	50	3.30
400	20	6.10
200	30	3.30
400	60	6.00
200	60	3.30
400	30	6.10
200	40	3.30
400	10	6.20
Swim Down	Swim Down	Swim Down
Total	3000mtrs

Lane 2	BX
10 min	Warm Up
Distance	Clock	Swim Rest
300	60	8.00
150	60	4.00
300	60	7.50
150	40	3.50
300	30	7.40
150	10	3.50
300	60	8.00
Swim down
Total mtrs	1650