It was another big success. Now thousands of young people from across south-eastern Europe are back home from the coast after the second "Spirit of Bourgas" music festival. They’ve enjoyed three days of summer sun, and three nights of music, dancing and booze. They brought with them energy and enthusiasm, injected money into the local economy and provided valuable publicity for the city and the region.

Pubs and restaurants rubbed their hands with joy. Much of the overspill from the festival ended up passing through their doors. Even their toilets became lucrative ventures, turned into five-minute timeshares and rented out at a tidy profit.

"Business has been good," one bleary-eyed bar owner told me after a hectic night. "We went home, had a few hours’ sleep and now we’re back for another crazy evening."

So far, so good. But spare a thought for the residents next to the venue. They spent nearly a week in high summer denied access to their local beach and faced sleepless nights as music from the hedonists’ hangout pounded away from dusk till dawn.

Putting up with a giant party in your own back garden isn’t so much fun when you’re not invited. You can press your nose up against the fence, but it’s not quite the same.

You might be wondering what kind of price tag this sort of goodwill carries. It appeared the locals’ sacrifice was recognised when national television reported that residents around the venue could get free access.

A blindingly simple plan to execute, you might think. Write down the half-dozen streets next to the festival site, then stick the list on the wall of the ticket office. When the groovy neighbours arrive, check the address on their identity cards against this list and – hey presto! – job done. The noise-damaged locals get to salsa hip-to-hip with the hip young things and everybody’s happy. Patience has its reward.

Ah! Forgive my impetuosity. As a native of this city told me, "This is Bulgaria. Things are never that simple."

Perhaps I should declare my own interest here. I’m a visitor from England, a journalist by profession, a music fan, officially on holiday and visiting family and friends. My host is another journalist, a genial man with his ear to the ground and an appetite for fun. He lives a stone’s throw from the beachfront Xanadu, so felt he’d earned the right to peep through the curtain.

Armed with his national identity card, he strode confidently to the ticket office. Ah, there’s a catch. He needs a special pass. From the council. An official there needs to confirm that he is who he says he is, and does live where he says he does. "Easy," said my friend, waving his ID card. "It’s all here."

I’m sure by now you’re ahead of me. Things are never that simple. No special pass: no entry. It’s 9.30pm on a Saturday night. The warmth of the evening has now been matched by the rudeness coming through the window of the ticket booth. The evening of Bacchanalian excess – well okay, some warm beer and a bit of a shuffle – slowly recedes from view. My host, feeling embarrassed, downhearted and demeaned, heads home.

Never one to be outdone, he rejoined the struggle on Sunday morning and entered another level of bureaucratic hell. There is a special scheme, said the council, but all the special passes had run out. This from a local authority that knows precisely how many houses are closest to the venue, and who lives in them.

One has to wonder: how is it possible to screw up something so simple? In days gone by, bureaucracy was often deployed in Soviet-bloc states to wear down the populace, to break their resolve. Political systems may have fallen, but some old habits die hard. The art of petty irritation is alive and well. I’m sad to say there’s a large amount of it in ‘old’ Europe too.

And there’s another thing that bothers me. In the 21st century, publicity is king. PR is everything. And in their eagerness to present their big party to the world, the organisers of the Spirit festival failed to take adequate account of what was under their noses. 

Goodwill is an admirable quality, and those several dozen residents unwittingly caught up in the festival deserve a bit of it, without having to jump through pointless bureaucratic hoops. In a modern world where image is everything, it’s important to remember rule number one: don’t crap on your own doorstep.