If I could choose any seat for a first Real Sociedad match at Anoeta, it would be low on one of the long sides, near the halfway line: zone 1 or 20 in the Tribuna Principal, or 10 or 11 in the Tribuna Este. Between those two stands I would take the Este.
For the matches I checked, the club's own sale was cheaper than the agency and let you pick your seat from a map, but the central seats were scarce. On 1 October, 24 days before the Levante match on 25 October, those four zones were down to six seats in one, a single seat in another and two runs at the front of a third. On 2 October, nine days before the Deportivo match, 1 and 20 still had five seats each. So buy early and, if the centre has gone, look again close to the match. If you need the ticket settled before you travel, the agency I checked was selling further ahead, at a higher price.
Information checked on 1 and 2 October 2026.
Anoeta grew again in summer 2026, and the top rows of its upper tier are the ones to skip
Real Sociedad's ground has been Anoeta again since summer 2025, when the naming deal that made it the Reale Arena ended. The rebuild of 2017 to 2019 took out the running track, knocked down and rebuilt both ends and pushed a new lower tier out towards the pitch along both sides. Only the upper sections of the two long stands and their roof were kept, and the roof was extended over the new ends. What came out of it is a bowl of two rings, a lower one where the zones carry numbers and an upper one where they carry letters.
In May 2026, twelve hours after the last home league game of 2025/26, against Valencia, work started on a third ring along the top of both the Principal and the Este, with new rows in the upper corners and at the top of both ends. The plan takes capacity from 39,500 to 42,247, all of the extra seats in the upper ring, and the ground reopened for Espanyol on 29 August with parts still unfinished.
The work drew hundreds of complaints straight away, from season-ticket holders in the top rows of the existing upper tier. The terraces built above them for hospitality and the press overhang their seats, and they said they could no longer see the big screens or follow a high ball. The club president, Jokin Aperribay, put the number affected at about 190 and promised screens for replays. Those in the Principal had already been moved, he said, and the club wanted to show those in the Este other places they could choose from. At the end of August he added that none of the new seats had been sold yet, and I found no published account of the view from the new ring itself. If the seat map ever offers you one of the top rows of the upper tier on either long side, I would leave it.
The seating plan the club publishes, with a 360-degree view from each zone, still shows Anoeta before the expansion. The 2026 work was mostly at the top of the ground, and when I checked the club's sale in October 2026, the lower-tier zones still used numbers from that plan, among them 1, 20, 26 and 27.
Numbers below, letters above: how Real Sociedad name the seats
The Tribuna Principal is the west stand, with the benches and the presidential box, and the Tribuna Este faces it. Behind the goals, the lower tier at the north end is the Grada Familiar and the lower tier at the south end is the Grada Aitor Zabaleta. That stand is named after Aitor Zabaleta, a Real Sociedad supporter stabbed to death by an Atlético ultra near the Vicente Calderón in December 1998.
In the lower ring, zones 1 and 20 sit either side of halfway on the Principal, with 2 and 19 further out. In front of them, beside the tunnel, two narrow sections run along the pitch: 26 in front of 20 and 27 in front of 1. On the Este, 10 is the central block at the front and 11 the central block behind it, with 8, 9, 12 and 13 further along. The upper ring runs on letters. B is the inner band of the Principal and G the inner band of the Este, with more letters behind them and round the corners, E1 to E4 above the north goal and L1 to L3 above the south one.
The sale groups those zones into price bands named after what they contain. PRINCIPAL A-B-1-20 covers the centre of the main stand, and ESTE G-H-11 puts two upper bands in with the back block of the lower centre. Inside a band you pick a zone, split into par and impar, which appear to be the even- and odd-numbered seats, and then a seat map opens and you choose your seats one at a time. You see exactly which seats are free before you pay, but you can only pick from what is left.
Given the choice, I would sit low on a long side near halfway
Zones 1 and 20 in the Principal and 10 and 11 in the Este are where I would start. The lower ring begins where the running track used to be, so these put you low and level with halfway, below the upper ring where the 2026 work went.
Between the two stands I would pick the Este, mostly on price. On 1 October the club's band for the centre of the Principal cost €80 for Deportivo on 11 October and €40 for Levante. Zone 11 was €60 and €35 for the same two matches, and zone 10 was €50 and €30. The Este also faces the presidential box, so from there you look across at both benches.
Within the Este, 11 sits in a higher price band than 10. The club sells 11, the block behind, in the same band as G and H upstairs, while 10 at the front goes in with the outer zones. I go by that price gap and look for 11 first.
Bring something waterproof wherever you sit. In 2019 a shareholder told the club's annual meeting that fans in the Tribuna Este got wet "up to row 18", and the president admitted that some of the leaks reported in the new stadium were still unresolved. In 2021 a downpour had people under umbrellas in rows well back from the pitch in the Aitor Zabaleta. I found nothing since on whether either was fixed.
For noise rather than the view, the place is the Grada Aitor Zabaleta, the singing section of more than 2,300 behind the south goal. A 2018 report on the new seats said fans there would be able to follow matches standing, with seats that fold up out of the way. In the two sales I checked, it barely reached the general public. On 1 October the Deportivo sale had a single seat left in a section marked G.A.Z., which I take to be this stand, at €35, and it was gone the next day, while for Levante the stand had already sold out. Wherever you sit, the club's ground rules allow its security coordinator to keep anyone in the visiting team's colours out of the home stands, by moving them or refusing entry, so leave the opponents' shirt at the hotel.
Central seats were scarce on 1 October, but some were still available nine days before Deportivo
I looked at the club's sale for two matches, once each. The club had announced on 13 August that tickets for the Levante match were on sale, and on 1 October, 24 days before kick-off, most zones on the map were sold out. Zone 1 had gone, and so had the inner upper bands G and B, the Grada Familiar and the Grada Aitor Zabaleta. Of the four central zones, 20 had six seats left at €40, 10 had one at €30, and 11 had 36 at €35, all in two runs near the front. Most of what was still open sat at the edges: 26 and 27 at €35, two blocks sold as VIP Norte and VIP Sur at €40, which the club's price list files under the Principal, F and S in the upper ring at €30 and €25, and 89 seats in a zone called E5 at €30.
On 2 October, nine days before Deportivo, the sale for that match had more in the middle. Zones 1 and 20 had five seats each at €80, A and B had 14 between them, G had one, and 26 and 27 had 8 and 43. Zone 11, F, E5 and the Aitor Zabaleta had sold out.
These are two different matches seen once each, so I can't tell whether the Deportivo seats had been there all along, and the screens don't say why seats are free. Part of the general sale is made up of seats that season-ticket holders give back to the club for matches they cannot attend, and some of the late availability may be those returned seats. Fans on a Real Sociedad forum say returned seats turn up in the week before a match. One wrote, 48 hours before the Atlético game in September, that plenty were available, together, in several zones.
So I would buy as early as I could, and if the centre had gone, look again in the last week or two in case central seats become available. That second look suits someone already in San Sebastián or with a flexible trip.
When the centre is thin, this is the order I would take what is left. Anything near halfway comes first, even at the front: seats in 1, 20, 10 or 11, the narrow sections 26 and 27 beside the tunnel, or the two blocks sold as VIP Norte and VIP Sur. VIP Norte is sold in the general sale like any other zone, and on the seat map it is the four rows nearest the pitch at the front of the Principal, marked towards the middle of the stand, and for Levante it had free seats in all four rows, the front one included. I could not confirm where VIP Sur is. Most of the others are low seats, and the seat map shows exactly where each one sits before you pay.
After that I would move to the upper ring at the ends, F on the Este or S towards the south, further away and cheaper.
E5 I would leave until last. It is not on the club's plan. On the sale map it sits in the north-east corner of the upper tier, right next to sections marked V1 and V2. I could not find what V1 and V2 are used for in any official material. It sold out for Deportivo and had 89 seats left for Levante, and in August a fan on a Real Sociedad forum described it as sold with reduced visibility.
The club was cheaper, and the agency was selling further ahead
Buy from the club's ticket site whenever the match is on it. The league matches I checked carried no booking fee, though a Europa League match had an additional one. There are under-14 prices, and the same zone can cost twice as much from one match to the next: zone 20 was €80 for Deportivo and €40 for Levante. Kick-off times are usually confirmed three to four weeks ahead, and once you have paid, the club does not normally change or refund tickets.
The club's sale covered fewer fixtures, though. On 1 October it listed six league matches: Deportivo, Levante, Rayo Vallecano, Sevilla, Getafe and Osasuna. P1 Travel, an agency, listed sixteen at Anoeta, running to the end of May 2027, with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Club and Betis among them. For those fixtures, on that day, the club was not selling and the agency was.
What you get from the agency is narrower. For the two matches I checked, P1 sold one category, long-side seating, without saying which blocks it covers, so a P1 ticket is not necessarily central. Rows and seats are assigned closer to the match, and the tickets arrive by email one to three days before. Seats booked together come together "unless we say otherwise", as P1 puts it. Orders are generally final once confirmed, so don't expect to change or cancel them yourself. P1 has separate terms for cancelled or postponed matches, and if new tickets are issued for a postponed match, it says it charges nothing extra for them. The agency also costs more. On 2 October P1 started at €65 for Levante, when the club's long-side bands had been €30 to €40, at €55 to €79 for most other fixtures, at €265 for Athletic Club and at €299 for Real Madrid and Barcelona. P1's terms say it charges booking or transaction fees per ticket. I found no children's price in the P1 listings I checked. Nor is it always ahead: for Deportivo, P1 had sold out while the club still had seats on sale.
So I would use the club's sale for any match it is selling, and the agency for a fixture the club has not put on sale yet, or when the trip can't wait to see whether seats free up late, paying more for a confirmed long-side ticket months ahead: see Real Sociedad home tickets on P1 Travel. Booking through the agency links in this article may earn Cholismo Lab a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
Atlético supporters can only use the away section
In 2024 reporting, the away section was in the upper tier at the north end, in the corner that faces the hill up to the hospitals, and held a little over 500 for league matches. A clear acrylic screen and its supports ran across the front, and a net covered the section. I could not confirm whether the 2026 expansion changed any of that.
Real Sociedad's checkout carries the warning that visiting supporters can buy only through their own club and sit in a separate section for security reasons, and that the club may refuse entry to visiting fans with tickets from other channels or seats outside that section. The rule on colours in home stands applies on top, and P1's listings carry the organiser's condition of no away fans.
On Atlético's side, away tickets are for members. They apply through their personal area until 48 hours after the kick-off time is confirmed, and if requests exceed the allocation, places go by length of membership. The tickets are on paper in the member's name, shown at the turnstile with a wristband and an identity document. The Atlético tickets guide explains the membership you need.
This season's league trip is done. Atlético won 3-0 at Anoeta on 13 September (match report).
Take Euskotren to Anoeta, not the Renfe stop with the same name
The stadium's station is Anoeta on Euskotren, the local line known as the Topo, on Paseo de Anoeta. Renfe's Cercanías line C1 also has a stop called Anoeta, about 17 km away near Tolosa.
On 23 September the Basque government and Euskotren announced that a new underground section through the centre, with stations at Amara, Kontxa-Zentroa and Bentaberri, opens on 21 November 2026 if everything goes to plan. The new section does away with the dead end at Amara's surface station, which should make the ride from the centre to Anoeta simpler, and I will update this section once it runs.
On match days Euskotren adds trains and runs specials home afterwards, and the city buses add services. For the Euskal Herria Txapela final against Athletic on 2 October, a non-league match, the plan had lines 28, 26 and 21 and extra FT buses leaving the Boulevard and Urbieta every few minutes. After the final whistle the streets around the ground stay closed to traffic for 15 minutes before the special buses leave.
The buses from San Sebastián airport at Hondarribia were renumbered on 1 October 2026, and BI01 now runs to the city's bus station. From Bilbao airport the coach is DO04, and from Biarritz, Alsa and FlixBus run to San Sebastián. Neither the club's ground rules nor its ticket FAQ set a bag size. I found no club listing for left luggage at the ground, but the bus station, Donostia Geltokia, has lockers open 24 hours.
Gates open an hour before kick-off. The ticket office opens two hours before, next to the members' office beside the Atano III pelota court. Everyone needs a ticket, babies included. The ground rules keep out tennis and golf balls, footballs and toilet rolls, among other things, and Spanish rules add glass and metal containers of any size, anything over 500 ml or 500 g that could be thrown, flares and alcohol.
Booking as a neutral visitor. If the club is not selling the match you want yet, Real Sociedad home tickets on P1 Travel lists the long-side category for the fixtures ahead. If you are travelling with Atlético, the away allocation above is the way in.