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No, they’re not giving people a break on that “convenience fee” that they tack on for anyone printing their tickets at home. (Ha ha, suckers!) Instead, under a new plan, the ticketing behemoth is getting ready to cut out the paper part of tickets entirely–at least the sort of paper that you bring with you to the show, i.e. the same sort that can get lost, or resold by “secondary market” types who aren’t part of the Ticketmaster-approved secondary market TicketExchange. The idea behind TicketMaster’s new plan, which it’s debuting at Tom Waits’ galaxy-mapped tour this summer, is pretty simple: You buy the ticket online, then when you get to the venue, instead of having the ticket-taker (NB to TM HR: might want to change the name of this particular occupation) scan your bar code, s/he swipes your credit card, smiling the whole way. It’s the future! The video news release after the jump shows a flaw in the “paperless” plan, though.
Is that a–a printout at the very end? Or does it count as “paperless” if what’s eventually being spat out from the machine looks more like the end product of a label maker than anything else?
TicketMaster goes “paperless” [TicketNews via Coolfer]
Was there really a huge demographic that always wanted to go see a show but did not because they hated having to pick up a ticket SO MUCH?
Also, it seems to me that having to wait for someone to swipe a credit card AND check your I.D. would, if anything, take MORE time than just have someone scan a ticket…
I bought tickets to the Atlanta show.
I will be fifty shades of irate if I drive 3 1/2 hours and there is a flaw in the system.
Can’t I just have a ticket? All of this newfangled technology makes old people like me suspicious.
Say somebody wants to give you, or you want to give somebody, tickets to a show as a gift. If everything’s paperless, then it looks like that’s not going to be happening anymore.
One more reason to hate Ticketmaster, I guess.
@whoneedslight: imagine having gotten one of those tickets to the washington d.c. radiohead show that people had to drive around hours because of the rain. imagine then if you had gotten lucky enough to be let in and then the system didn’t recognize your card, etc.
@summeroflove:
Did this happen to you?
@whoneedslight: nope, thank god. i have tix to another show which is thankfully not in the in a flood-prone area. i was reading about it here (sorry, don’t know how to post links. hopefully this works):
[consumerist.com]
@summeroflove: ‘in A flood-prone…’
*sigh* can’t type today.
How are the seats assigned? Does the usher check your credit card #?
so yeah… what does happen if you want to give someone tickets for a gift? or if you like to buy tickets at the box office to avoid service charges? although, i guess that might even have something to do with this… people are buying tickets without paying convenience charges, and ticketbastard doesn’t like it.
i don’t like this, because i like to keep the ticket stubs as “souvenirs”.
I’ve done this at museums and IMAX theatres, and it did print out a ticket that I then walked 20 feet and handed to a ticket taker.
what is so convienent about ticketmaster charging you 10$ – 15$ per ticket for a conveinience charge. if you go online and get your tickets you do all the work yourself and its only 42c to mail you the tickets.
If there are no tickets, shouldn’t they change their name?
CardSwipeMaster perhaps?
It’s like voting machines…needs a paper trail, for sure, or else there’s bound to be malfunctions, fraud and hacking.
Gee, this wouldn’t be the beginning of freezing out
non-ticketmaster sanctioned scalpers to increase profits. Another wonderful
convenience for the end customer. thanks TM.