BY NICK BRADLEY
TICKET INSPECTOR The introduction of new ticketing technology is
helping stadium operators to enhance security,
eliminate scalper activity, as well as offer fans added
value and a smoother experience on gameday
lobally, there’s US$15.2bn to be generated
in the ‘scalped’ market for all live events
in 2020 – a significant sum of money that
the secondary ticket market isn’t going to
give up lightly. And it’s ironic that
scalping has proliferated with evermore sophisticated
bots – predicted to comprise the majority of ticket
buyers within two years – yet high-tech can combat
this nefarious activity.
“The secondary ticket market has many problems
surrounding it,” laments Ashton Addison, the CEO
and founder of Canada’s EventChain, who’s been on
the end of such unscrupulous behavior after buying
a fake concert ticket and then being refused entry at
the door. It was this moment that led to the idea of
turning physical tickets into “scarce digital assets” in
a blockchain to consign such scams to the past.
“Scalpers can print off hundreds of the same ticket
and sell them all and only the first person to the
turnstile will get in,” he says. “On a blockchain every
transaction is recorded in a block and chained
together, so if a ticket is transferred multiple times,
it’s always recorded.
“With EventChain’s SmartTickets, club owners can
trace their tickets from inception into the primary
market and any transfers or resale within the
secondary market, all the way to the ticket check-in
at the gate,” Addison explains. “They’ll have more
information regarding their actual attendees to
better serve them and to market toward them for
future events.”
SmartTickets also enables the programmability
of ticket prices. “If an event organizer wants to limit
scalping and enforce a face-only-value ticket on the
secondary market, they can program that in,”
continues Addison. “As the technology evolves, we’ll
see more fan engagement through digital experiences
and a lot more data behind these interactions as well.”
Nick Maynard, lead researcher at consultant
Juniper Research, recently authored a deep dive into
the marketplace and agrees the promise of blockchain
is substantial. “Scalping is a challenge but being able
to record details around ticketing purchase adds
transparency and can eliminate the scourge,” he feels.
Having field-tested the technology for around 18
months, UEFA has confirmed that more than a
million blockchain tickets will be distributed for the
Euro 2020 (2021) soccer tournament, with the backend
solution rumored to have come from
Switzerland’s SecuTix. Blockchain has also been
discussed for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
“By using blockchain, QR codes and pre-validation
of user identities, digital ticketing can make the
entrance process much faster in terms of queuing and
safer by automatically being able to screen-out banned
visitors,” says Maynard. “They make it easier to see
TICKETING
52 www.stadia-magazine.com March 2020
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