where proximity-based technologies like NFC, RFID, and audio are used. They’ll later be available at Ticketmaster’s “ Presence-enabled” venues - today that includes 300 venues across the U.S. Initially, they’ll be used across NFL stadiums for the 2019 season and across a variety of touring artists’ acts. SafeTix aren’t immediately available everywhere, but are instead rolling out to specific venues and events to start. “SafeTix will allow fans to arrive at a show or game with confidence that their tickets are always 100 percent authentic and will dramatically reduce the amount of ticket fraud event owners are dealing with on event day,” he added. “Because a new ticket is issued every time there’s a transfer or sale, event owners have the ability to develop a unique relationship with each fan, leading to in-venue personalization and future communication while increasing their known fanbase,” explained Justin Burleigh, Chief Product Officer of Ticketmaster, North America, in a statement about the launch. The event or venue owner can even choose to follow up with the fan after the event wrapped, Ticketmaster says. These are the fans they couldn’t have necessarily reached in the past, had the fan entered the venue using only a screenshot on their phone, for instance, or a paper ticket. This also means venues and event owners can target attendees with other offers and information about the event - like food, beverage or merchandise deals or venue-specific instructions. And that data can then be turned over to event owners, who will now have information about both the original ticket owner and the actual attendee, as well as anyone else who had access to the ticket. As a result, Ticketmaster gains visibility into the custody chain of each ticket, it notes. The change could also complicate things at venue check-in as users fumble with their phones to figure out how their new passes work - at least in the near-term.įor fans, the change means they’ll have to transfer tickets to friends, or anyone else they’re selling a ticket to, using the recipient’s phone number or email address. In practice, however, this may inconvenience some people who previously enjoyed the ease of screenshotting the ticket, then sending it to a friend - something that’s a lot faster than using the transfer feature on Ticketmaster’s website and in its app. Because the barcodes now automatically refresh, a saved photo won’t work. Today, unscrupulous resellers take screenshots or photocopies of tickets that they then sell multiple times over to unsuspecting victims. The combination of new technologies is meant to cut down on ticket fraud.