10 ms·

This sort of ticketing thing is a trivially solvable problem. It is solved at every airport in the entire world millions of times per day. You provide the name

This sort of ticketing thing is a trivially solvable problem. It is solved at every airport in the entire world millions of times per day. You provide the name of each concertgoer when you buy a ticket, and they show up with their ticket and ID. You often need to show your ID at these kinds of venues to prove you're old enough to drink beer anyway.

whydoineedthis 2y ago
A lot of concert goers are under 18 and dint have valid state id.
cogman10 2y ago
Yup. I have to believe the reason the likes of ticket master isn't fixing this is because they are selling/auctioning/reserving some percentage of tickets to scalpers or "3rd party sellers". Requiring ID is such an obvious solution that I have to believe these convoluted approaches are only there so the secondary market can exist and so ticket master can wash their hands when prices get out of control on that market.
- oehpr 2y ago
  I have to presume that the driving impetus of all of this is that they're trying to avoid the actual requirement of checking the ID. Like, they want to improve the flow of traffic through admissions. But I mean, obviously, any kind of system like this strikes me as the same sort of thing as DRM. That you can somehow protect the message from the person you're sharing the message to. How can you avoid reselling if you don't verify the original purchaser? It just seemes ridiculous on its face.
  - jrockway 2y ago
    Yup exactly. Some events are pretty bad at opening the doors early. The Brooklyn Nets seem to open 30 minutes before the game, so they need to get 20,000 people through 20 metal detectors in 30 minutes. Every second extra they add to the process is a second you don't have to buy a $25 drink, and that's how they make their money. We check IDs for flights because airline yield management demands that there be no resale, or business travelers would be traveling on leisure fares.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - BobaFloutist 2y ago
      >We check IDs for flights because airline yield management demands that there be no resale, or business travelers would be traveling on leisure fares. Sorry, what? Surely business travelers pay more just by virtue of traveling by business class? Or, if travel through business portals was consistently significantly more expensive than just buying the ticket directly on the airline's website, businesses would just start buying tickets directly from the airline's website? Is there something about how ticket fares are calculated and paid that I don't understand?
      - qazxcvbnmlp 2y ago
        Business travelers != travelers in business class. Airlines use a fair number of techniques to price discriminate between leisure and business passengers.
      - drewg123 2y ago
        Last minute / next day fares have traditionally been far more expensive than 3 week advance, and that was intended to impact business travel more than leisure. If there was a 3rd party marketplace for airline tickets, last minute tickets would not be nearly as expensive and the airlines would make far less money. Consider an example where we have a business traveler "Bob" and a leisure traveler "Larry". Bob needs to get to LAX tomorrow to put out a fire at a client site. Larry has a trip booked to LAX tomorrow, but can't go because he's sick. Larry has paid $500 for the trip 3 weeks ago. Today: Larry cancels his trip, and maybe, if he's lucky, gets an airline credit for the original price of the trip that expires in a year and which may be hard to use for his next trip. When he cancels, a seat opens up on the plane, and the airline sells it to Bob for $1200. If resale was permitted: Larry auctions off his ticket at an airline ticket reseller. He gets $700 from Bob. So if resale was permitted, Bob's business saves $500, and Larry makes $200, and the airline looses $1200-$1700. You can see why they hate resale.
        2y ago
  - cogman10 2y ago
    So even if you don't want to do the ID thing, there are alternatives that you see all over the place (like venmo) Have a rotating QR code seeded with a unique to the user id. Then with ticket master, require a login to buy tickets. Register the tickets to the ID and then do the lookup with a combination of the ticket id, rotating qr code, and the user id. That requires the admitter device to send the challenge back to HQ, but that shouldn't really be much of a challenge. Tickets then become linked to the user's account (perhaps you allow transfer). This is effectively what Disney does with their ticketing system, along with at the gate them taking a picture of you so they can confirm "Yes, so and so looks like the photo". But yeah, all of this is ridiculous on its face as the cheaper and easier solution is ticket plus ID. If you are worried about flow have signs up before check in that say "be sure to have your ID ready before you get to the counter". The ticketmaster solutions are just bad/half assed. That is to say, if ticketmater had just done TOPS like the article points out, you'd not need the headache they've created with needing a live internet connection to load your ticket.
    - monksy 2y ago
      Disney is collecting pictures of everyone faces. That's pretty creepy.
      - 8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
        They only collected my fingerprint last time I went.
        hiatus 2y ago
        Are there no cameras in the fingerprint collection area?
        8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
        I don't recall. There's probably cameras everywhere. Disney is hardcore.
    - 2y ago
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    > How can you avoid reselling if you don't verify the original purchaser? A ticket scalper cannot know the names of the people that will later purchase his tickets. So connecting each ticket to a name prevents scalpers.
  - crote 2y ago
    > Like, they want to improve the flow of traffic through admissions. But they in turn greatly degraded the flow of traffic by forcing the use of a proprietary always-online app which fails to load when your cellular connection is less-than-ideal. Verifying a photo ID would probably be faster.
    - oehpr 2y ago
      True, but when you point out practical realities like this to monopolistic institutions, they don't have to care. They will instead ask "well why isn't the connection good at the concert? What can we do to fix that?" (ie. "we don't have to change when we can make you change") It IS true that if you don't have to verify the ID of the ticket holder then admissions will go much faster. So long as they can make that plausible sales pitch, they can use it as justification for whatever byzantine DRM system they can dream up.
- makestuff 2y ago
  Yeah I agree, they are not incentivized to fix scaling/bots because they get a fee every time a ticket is sold. It is in their best interest for the ticket to be sold as many times as possible.
- fewconspiracies 2y ago
  [flagged]
anonuser1234 2y ago
[flagged]
- wombat-man 2y ago
  Oh cool, so when I buy a scalped ticket I'll simply order a quality fake ID as well.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    Perfect SAAS opportunity.
- stryan 2y ago
  Buying and using a scalped ticket isn't a crime for the concert-goer, using a fake ID (in most states) is meaning it puts significantly more pressure the consumer to not buy. Also, most people in the US over the age of 21 don't have fake ID's, so it's a reasonable detriment.
- oehpr 2y ago
  The solution doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be good. Good enough is good enough.
- mportela 2y ago
  GenAI?
wombat-man 2y ago
Hell, you just scan your ID at TSA nowadays. They don't need your ticket.
- dawnerd 2y ago
  Or just scan your face with the new Digital ID rolling out. It's actually quite nice.
- lotsoweiners 2y ago
  I flew about 3 days ago and they only asked for my minor children’s boarding passes.
storyinmemo 2y ago
But also, the hell with this. I'm still sour enough about the TSA without the concept of, "I'll buy tickets for me and three of my friends then see who wants to go," becoming impossible or gated by ticket transfer fees.
- swores 2y ago
  Even allowing that but requiring your valid ID must be taken into the venue by yourself (or by your friends eg if you get sick and can't go) would be a big improvement, meaning ticket scalps would have to actually go or have someone on their team go along with every ticket they resell.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Airlines are preventing a secondary market. Unfavorable for your use case, but also prevents scalping airline tickets (while allowing airlines to attempt to maximize revenue). There are always tradeoffs and compromise. To hack around this, I've used Southwest Airlines; I can buy tickets for folks and if they can't travel, we cancel the ticket(s) and keep the travel funds banked for another time. I hope this is potentially helpful information. https://simpleflying.com/why-airlines-dont-allow-name-changes/ https://simpleflying.com/why-airlines-dont-allow-name-change...
  - pxx 2y ago
    except Southwest is easily the most expensive carrier these days and other carriers have also adopted flexibility hopefully their new changes such as allowing their fares to be indexed will make them close to being competitive at some point. but today you really only get near-competitiveness (it's still bad) if you're going to check both pieces of luggage and have no way of getting free luggage on any other carrier. even buying and throwing away tickets, depending on your probability of travel, might pay for itself in one trip.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      People who compare Southwest to Frontier and Spirit are not serious people. Southwest is a premium offering, if folks want to ride cattle car a la carte, I encourage them to, just don't ruin the established brand of SWA. I would rather fly dead on Southwest than alive on another domestic carrier.
tqi 2y ago
People often buy tickets without knowing exactly which of their friends are going to attend with them. This is not true of airplane tickets.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Would be awesome if it were true for airplane tickets
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  One ID for the entire order would be fine. You can buy 4 tickets, and go into the concert with your 3 friends. It often works this way even with no ID involved, I buy two tickets, add them both to my wallet, scan them both when my GF and I go to the show. You COULD still scalp tickets if the person who bought them from you is going to walk in with you. But the scalper would have to eat the cost of one ticket to do it, and it's probably onerous enough to severly reduce the impact of scalping.
  - miki123211 2y ago
    That's how trains work (here). Every ticket must have one name and surname on it, no matter how many passengers it covers. That person must be traveling on the ticket. You're usually asked for some kind of photo anyway because of discounts, which a very significant percentage of train riders are entitled to. I think this is because tickets must be both printable and verifiable offline in case the train gets into a spot with no connectivity when the inspector is inspecting tickets.
    - CuriousIndian 2y ago
      Thats interesting to learn. Here, train tickets need to list every passenger along with their age and gender. This also enables you to cancel for just one person on the ticket without affecting the rest. The ticketing system basically assumes no network connectivity. Ticket inspectors usually only ask you for your name and match it to their records. And only ask for and id in rare situations (you absolutely need to have yout id with you irrespective of infrequently you actually need to show it).
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
That requires a single source of truth for which names go with which tickets. Which is going to be a problem if tickets need to be transferred in contexts where users don't have internet access (but they do have local connectivity between devices) or in contexts where the venue doesn't have internet access. Or in cases where the single source of truth might be vulnerable to attack or doesn't have the resources to handle the load at certain times. I don't have the solution explicitly, but it seems like it ought to be possible to do this such that PII need not be collected. Tickets could be cryptographic proofs that a chain of custody exists and meets certain criteria. The proofs could be constructed at transfer time and verified at admission, no servers in the loop anywhere. Yeah, we'll come up against the CAP theorem eventually, but we might find that the imposed constraints are workable.
- immibis 2y ago
  > Which is going to be a problem if tickets need to be transferred in contexts where users don't have internet access (but they do have local connectivity between devices) or in contexts where the venue doesn't have internet access. You know as well as I do that TicketMaster won't allow any of that, because it means they miss out on selling another ticket.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    I was operating under the assumption that the goal was to replace TicketMaster with an open protocol.
lilyball 2y ago
Flying requires an ID. Attending a concert should not. Any solution that is solved by "simple, just require an ID" is not a solution.
- itishappy 2y ago
  > Flying requires an ID. Attending a concert should not. Why though? Not disagreeing per say because I'd have thought so too, but upon reflection... I assume the main reason airlines require an ID is safety and security. We maintain a denied parties list and use identity verification to make it as difficult as possible to fly a plane into a crowded venue. Border control is another issue, but there's plenty of intra-country or intra-state flights where this isn't an issue. Ticketmaster sells unverified access to crowded venues.
  - jmb99 2y ago
    Is your argument that people should be unable to attend concerts/etc without presenting ID? I for one am not a fan of that idea
    - itishappy 2y ago
      I'm not a fan of it either. Just sayin' that concerts and events are where the densest crowds are. Are we protecting people from doing things to events more than the events themselves? I'd hope this is an argument for more granular control. I'd love to fly short-hops without ID, but maybe TSwift concerts should require something? (Edit: Do they? Events/venues do start to have their own security at some point. Flights also have different controls for national vs international.) I'm also probably overly discounting border control. Traceability in particular. I'm not a fan of this either.
    - fnfjfk 2y ago
      You need to show one to get a drinking wristband anyways (and avoid the hand Xs), or into any 16+, 18+, or 21+ show.
      - 2y ago
llsf 2y ago
The issue is most likely about throughput. You want to let fans enter the venue as quick as possible. Most venues have lots of gates, but still the latency at each gate has to be a handful of seconds per ticket. Having to validate both ticket and ID would easily double or triple that time.
- crftr 2y ago
  Today's digital entry experience is far from frictionless. Might as well add a scan of the PDF417 barcode on the back of the latest state ID cards. I just went to a MLB game yesterday, and the digital process was: - Open ticket app - scan ticket 1 - scan ticket 2 I imagine this could have been: - Open ticket app - scan PDF417 - scan ticket 1 - scan ticket 2
  - llsf 2y ago
    Hopefully in the near future (https://nfc-forum.org/news/2024-07-nfc-forum-defines-next-generation-of-contactless-user-experience-with-multi-purpose-tap/ https://nfc-forum.org/news/2024-07-nfc-forum-defines-next-ge...) you would just need to tap you phone once, and get your ID passed to the scanner, along all the tickets for that venue & time. No more opening app, and showing different tickets and IDs. That would clear that argument.
  - eqvinox 2y ago
    For one, this is a problem world wide, but OK, you can try to solve it for the US. But for another, not everyone has a state ID card. In particular the 7.1% of the population that does not have U.S. citizenship will have varying amounts of US documentation, depending on how long they're in the US for and whether they're there legally. And you really want to be able to sell tickets to tourists.
- 627467 2y ago
  I keep reading about this argument but Olympics and World Cup matches are arguably as large events (if not larger) and they place name on ticket and check ID at entrance. people complain at ticketmaster yet seem to bend over backwards to justify the state of affairs
reddalo 2y ago
Italy solved this. Five years ago, a new law enforced ID-checking when you enter any big events (like concerts with an audience larger than 5000 people). Tickets have your name on it, and you can only change the name or resell them through the official seller (so, third party resellers are out of the game). Also, every reselling transaction is registered and can be inspected by the Italian Rightsholder Agency (SIAE).
- rangestransform 2y ago
  I’d rather not solve it than let the state have more information about my transactions
- cyberbolt23 2y ago
  Because this, and more very strange rules it is very hard for ticketing systems to get into the Italian market. Some examples: - not allowed to change to time or name of the event after the 1st ticket is sold - only allowed section names in halls from a know list - free tickets on events... can only do this under strange conditions - smart card application, for encryption, must run on a physical server in Italy. You should not be able to log into the ticketing box office if that smart card application is not running.
  - reddalo 2y ago
    You know many details about Italian ticketing systems, are you working in the industry?
bagels 2y ago
This improves the security over airline tickets. There was a recent story of someone taking pictures of other people's boarding passes, and using that to board the plane. With this ticketmaster scheme, unless the person has access to the secret keys, the pass would only be valid for a few seconds, likely defeating this attack against boarding passes. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/texas-man-boards-delta-flight-using-a-photo-of-a-girls-boarding-pass/3494722/ https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/texas-man-board...
- Zopieux 2y ago
  How often has this been a problem though? How about not keeping your boarding pass, or ticket, or credit card for that matter, visible for the world? Just put it in your wallet, I don't know. This is security FUD. Stop solving problems that do not exist to the point where it makes the news when they do happen, once a century. This DRM scheme concretely creates millions of small annoyances to millions of people and wasting our time as a society.
  - bagels 2y ago
    It also happens that pranksters can cancel your travel if your boarding passes make it on to Twitter or other social media. It's not a non-problem like you make it out to be. Sure, it won't happen to you or me, because we know it is a risk to expose these documents, but that is not true of most people. Maybe the DRM is not worth it. I actually think it's obnoxious for concert tickets (I recently had to deal with this system, and I was not thrilled about installing an app from a company that I think is using unfair business practices).
    - lmm 2y ago
      > It also happens that pranksters can cancel your travel if your boarding passes make it on to Twitter or other social media. The security theater of checking ID does nothing to stop this. What's your point?
      - 2y ago
dawnerd 2y ago
Airlines are starting to use rotating barcodes as well. Heck some are even switching to purely facial recognition.
johnflan 2y ago
I’m not sure that would fly in Europe. And I personally don’t want to hand over my id to use a ticket
- m0dest 2y ago
  Exactly. The privacy characteristics of government ID cards are worse than any other solution. When sharing such an ID, a person is providing several global, stable identifiers (e.g. ID number, full legal name). For adtech and data brokers, this is the ultimate fingerprint for tracking and matching. In a perfect world, the digitization of these IDs would come with modern digital privacy and security. Scanning your ID number would only provide a recipient-specific ID that couldn't be matched with other vendors. Age eligibility and driver's licensing status would be presented as separate signed attestations that share no other data. We aren't even heading in that direction yet.
nedt 2y ago
I wouldn’t bring my ID to a concert. I don’t have my wallet with me and even if I would they wouldn’t like me to have a backpack. I‘m coming as light and minimal as possible and also would hate to lose my ID jumping around at a concert.
- 627467 2y ago
  ...yet you have a phone (for the moving barcode and whatnot) which is heavier and bulkier than a card?
  - nedt 2y ago
    True. I feel it, it's locked without my face and I can track it.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      Have a picture of your ID on your phone, like every other person has. Or bring a photocopy of your ID that you can throw away after entering.
      - hnuser435 2y ago
        I don't.
      - nedt 2y ago
        That's not valid. And almost no one would except it. The real digital version is still in the making.
        carlosjobim 2y ago
        I knew this comment would come. But you're wrong. A photo of your ID is accepted almost everywhere, and especially at a ticketed event where the only purpose is to match your face to the name on the ticket. They're not the police, they just want to check that you're the person who should have the ticket.
MattGrommes 2y ago
Some venues do this already and the scalpers buy an additional ticket to burn on themselves so they can get their customer in the gate. It just goes into the cost of doing business. I agree this is probably one of the best ways to stop scalpers but it's not foolproof.
muppetman 2y ago
No, it's not. At my work here we'll all go online to try and get tickets to a big gig. One of us might get in, so that person will get ~8 tickets or whatever the maximum is. And then we split them between us, transfering over cash etc. If we have a few left over we'll sell them to friends for the ticket value. But none of us have any intention of lining up with the others to get in. We want to go with our partners, our own friends etc. I want Bob, Terry or Bazzy to by able to buy tickets for me (or me for Bob, Terry or Bazza) but I do not want to have to meet up with Bob, Terry and Bazza and stand in line with them all to get in. So yea, it's not trivial. I wish it was, I farkin' hate scalpers.
- 627467 2y ago
  how is this not the same as 8 people trying to find airline tickets for everyone? you can buy tickets for different passengers. some airlines/travel agencies even allow for name change for a fee.
- condiment 2y ago
  This is trivial and solutions exist in the wild already. If you buy tix for the Paris Olympics, you can transfer them to your friends or you can assign their names to the tickets directly. The interesting mechanism there is that you can buy a lot of seats at once, but you don’t get to choose where they are exactly, only the section. So in every case you’re going to have people buying big lots of tickets and distributing them to friends and family after the fact.
cbsmith 2y ago
Yeah, except NO. A lot of people think live event ticketing is the same problem as airplane tickets, but they really aren't. As an example, there are rules about requiring identification for commercial flight. There are rules against requiring identification for live events.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  Where has rules prohibiting it? Maybe will move. :D
627467 2y ago
+1 to this. also doesn't Olympics and World Cup class events also face similar issue as concerts, and they allow for fair'ish purchase and resale by private people, but only through their platform?
dclowd9901 2y ago
I’ve heard the argument that forcing people to have an ID is anti folks with disabilities and anti-poor since it requires someone to go to an issuing agency to obtain and pay for one, which could be putting someone out who has a mobility disability or doesn’t have a lot of money. I’m not making the argument but it’s an argument I’ve heard.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  If the government needs people to have IDs, then maybe the government should provide those IDs for free...
  - dclowd9901 2y ago
    I happen to agree, but it isn’t only the government that requires IDs if private companies are asking for them as well.
throwaway2037 2y ago
I agree, mostly. What do you do for people without an ID (and without a parent)? Think of the number of people at a Taylor Swift concert who are under 18 -- a lot. Also, checking the name between ticket and ID will slow down entrance by 2-5 times, I guess.
- otherme123 2y ago
  I was recently at a Festival that requires ticket + ID (https://www.resurrectionfest.es https://www.resurrectionfest.es). The key to success was to put a little more personal at the gates, maybe 15 people instead of 10. But it is also true that we have the ID document issued in our early teens it not before. Each ticket verification takes 3 more seconds extra to verify the ID matches, no big deal. Said festival does their own ticket re-sale to avoid scalping but mainly to avoid shady sites that are known to allow the selling of counterfeits. You can only cede your ticket, not sell it. It is not perfect (e.g. if you don't find a buyer for the same price, you can't sell it at a lost to recoup some money. You get your ticket back) but at least is not as bad as the one from Ticketmaster.
jcul 2y ago
This has its own problems. It makes it difficult to swap tickets. A music festival I went to recently charged 30 euro to change the name on a ticket.
gorbachev 2y ago
Ticketmaster says: NIH
breakfastduck 2y ago
This is a horrible horrible idea. It'd then be impossible to buy a few tickets to an event with the intention of finding people to come after the fact.

whydoineedthis 2y ago

A lot of concert goers are under 18 and dint have valid state id.

cogman10 2y ago

Yup. I have to believe the reason the likes of ticket master isn't fixing this is because they are selling/auctioning/reserving some percentage of tickets to scalpers or "3rd party sellers". Requiring ID is such an obvious solution that I have to believe these convoluted approaches are only there so the secondary market can exist and so ticket master can wash their hands when prices get out of control on that market.

oehpr 2y ago
I have to presume that the driving impetus of all of this is that they're trying to avoid the actual requirement of checking the ID. Like, they want to improve the flow of traffic through admissions. But I mean, obviously, any kind of system like this strikes me as the same sort of thing as DRM. That you can somehow protect the message from the person you're sharing the message to. How can you avoid reselling if you don't verify the original purchaser? It just seemes ridiculous on its face.
- jrockway 2y ago
  Yup exactly. Some events are pretty bad at opening the doors early. The Brooklyn Nets seem to open 30 minutes before the game, so they need to get 20,000 people through 20 metal detectors in 30 minutes. Every second extra they add to the process is a second you don't have to buy a $25 drink, and that's how they make their money. We check IDs for flights because airline yield management demands that there be no resale, or business travelers would be traveling on leisure fares.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - BobaFloutist 2y ago
    >We check IDs for flights because airline yield management demands that there be no resale, or business travelers would be traveling on leisure fares. Sorry, what? Surely business travelers pay more just by virtue of traveling by business class? Or, if travel through business portals was consistently significantly more expensive than just buying the ticket directly on the airline's website, businesses would just start buying tickets directly from the airline's website? Is there something about how ticket fares are calculated and paid that I don't understand?
    - qazxcvbnmlp 2y ago
      Business travelers != travelers in business class. Airlines use a fair number of techniques to price discriminate between leisure and business passengers.
    - drewg123 2y ago
      Last minute / next day fares have traditionally been far more expensive than 3 week advance, and that was intended to impact business travel more than leisure. If there was a 3rd party marketplace for airline tickets, last minute tickets would not be nearly as expensive and the airlines would make far less money. Consider an example where we have a business traveler "Bob" and a leisure traveler "Larry". Bob needs to get to LAX tomorrow to put out a fire at a client site. Larry has a trip booked to LAX tomorrow, but can't go because he's sick. Larry has paid $500 for the trip 3 weeks ago. Today: Larry cancels his trip, and maybe, if he's lucky, gets an airline credit for the original price of the trip that expires in a year and which may be hard to use for his next trip. When he cancels, a seat opens up on the plane, and the airline sells it to Bob for $1200. If resale was permitted: Larry auctions off his ticket at an airline ticket reseller. He gets $700 from Bob. So if resale was permitted, Bob's business saves $500, and Larry makes $200, and the airline looses $1200-$1700. You can see why they hate resale.
      - 2y ago
- cogman10 2y ago
  So even if you don't want to do the ID thing, there are alternatives that you see all over the place (like venmo) Have a rotating QR code seeded with a unique to the user id. Then with ticket master, require a login to buy tickets. Register the tickets to the ID and then do the lookup with a combination of the ticket id, rotating qr code, and the user id. That requires the admitter device to send the challenge back to HQ, but that shouldn't really be much of a challenge. Tickets then become linked to the user's account (perhaps you allow transfer). This is effectively what Disney does with their ticketing system, along with at the gate them taking a picture of you so they can confirm "Yes, so and so looks like the photo". But yeah, all of this is ridiculous on its face as the cheaper and easier solution is ticket plus ID. If you are worried about flow have signs up before check in that say "be sure to have your ID ready before you get to the counter". The ticketmaster solutions are just bad/half assed. That is to say, if ticketmater had just done TOPS like the article points out, you'd not need the headache they've created with needing a live internet connection to load your ticket.
  - monksy 2y ago
    Disney is collecting pictures of everyone faces. That's pretty creepy.
    - 8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
      They only collected my fingerprint last time I went.
      - hiatus 2y ago
        Are there no cameras in the fingerprint collection area?
        8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
        I don't recall. There's probably cameras everywhere. Disney is hardcore.
  - 2y ago
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  > How can you avoid reselling if you don't verify the original purchaser? A ticket scalper cannot know the names of the people that will later purchase his tickets. So connecting each ticket to a name prevents scalpers.
- crote 2y ago
  > Like, they want to improve the flow of traffic through admissions. But they in turn greatly degraded the flow of traffic by forcing the use of a proprietary always-online app which fails to load when your cellular connection is less-than-ideal. Verifying a photo ID would probably be faster.
  - oehpr 2y ago
    True, but when you point out practical realities like this to monopolistic institutions, they don't have to care. They will instead ask "well why isn't the connection good at the concert? What can we do to fix that?" (ie. "we don't have to change when we can make you change") It IS true that if you don't have to verify the ID of the ticket holder then admissions will go much faster. So long as they can make that plausible sales pitch, they can use it as justification for whatever byzantine DRM system they can dream up.
makestuff 2y ago
Yeah I agree, they are not incentivized to fix scaling/bots because they get a fee every time a ticket is sold. It is in their best interest for the ticket to be sold as many times as possible.
fewconspiracies 2y ago
[flagged]

anonuser1234 2y ago

[flagged]

wombat-man 2y ago
Oh cool, so when I buy a scalped ticket I'll simply order a quality fake ID as well.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Perfect SAAS opportunity.
stryan 2y ago
Buying and using a scalped ticket isn't a crime for the concert-goer, using a fake ID (in most states) is meaning it puts significantly more pressure the consumer to not buy. Also, most people in the US over the age of 21 don't have fake ID's, so it's a reasonable detriment.
oehpr 2y ago
The solution doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be good. Good enough is good enough.
mportela 2y ago
GenAI?

wombat-man 2y ago

Hell, you just scan your ID at TSA nowadays. They don't need your ticket.

dawnerd 2y ago
Or just scan your face with the new Digital ID rolling out. It's actually quite nice.
lotsoweiners 2y ago
I flew about 3 days ago and they only asked for my minor children’s boarding passes.

storyinmemo 2y ago

But also, the hell with this. I'm still sour enough about the TSA without the concept of, "I'll buy tickets for me and three of my friends then see who wants to go," becoming impossible or gated by ticket transfer fees.

swores 2y ago
Even allowing that but requiring your valid ID must be taken into the venue by yourself (or by your friends eg if you get sick and can't go) would be a big improvement, meaning ticket scalps would have to actually go or have someone on their team go along with every ticket they resell.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
Airlines are preventing a secondary market. Unfavorable for your use case, but also prevents scalping airline tickets (while allowing airlines to attempt to maximize revenue). There are always tradeoffs and compromise. To hack around this, I've used Southwest Airlines; I can buy tickets for folks and if they can't travel, we cancel the ticket(s) and keep the travel funds banked for another time. I hope this is potentially helpful information. https://simpleflying.com/why-airlines-dont-allow-name-changes/ https://simpleflying.com/why-airlines-dont-allow-name-change...
- pxx 2y ago
  except Southwest is easily the most expensive carrier these days and other carriers have also adopted flexibility hopefully their new changes such as allowing their fares to be indexed will make them close to being competitive at some point. but today you really only get near-competitiveness (it's still bad) if you're going to check both pieces of luggage and have no way of getting free luggage on any other carrier. even buying and throwing away tickets, depending on your probability of travel, might pay for itself in one trip.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    People who compare Southwest to Frontier and Spirit are not serious people. Southwest is a premium offering, if folks want to ride cattle car a la carte, I encourage them to, just don't ruin the established brand of SWA. I would rather fly dead on Southwest than alive on another domestic carrier.

tqi 2y ago

People often buy tickets without knowing exactly which of their friends are going to attend with them. This is not true of airplane tickets.

actionfromafar 2y ago
Would be awesome if it were true for airplane tickets
mattmaroon 2y ago
One ID for the entire order would be fine. You can buy 4 tickets, and go into the concert with your 3 friends. It often works this way even with no ID involved, I buy two tickets, add them both to my wallet, scan them both when my GF and I go to the show. You COULD still scalp tickets if the person who bought them from you is going to walk in with you. But the scalper would have to eat the cost of one ticket to do it, and it's probably onerous enough to severly reduce the impact of scalping.
- miki123211 2y ago
  That's how trains work (here). Every ticket must have one name and surname on it, no matter how many passengers it covers. That person must be traveling on the ticket. You're usually asked for some kind of photo anyway because of discounts, which a very significant percentage of train riders are entitled to. I think this is because tickets must be both printable and verifiable offline in case the train gets into a spot with no connectivity when the inspector is inspecting tickets.
  - CuriousIndian 2y ago
    Thats interesting to learn. Here, train tickets need to list every passenger along with their age and gender. This also enables you to cancel for just one person on the ticket without affecting the rest. The ticketing system basically assumes no network connectivity. Ticket inspectors usually only ask you for your name and match it to their records. And only ask for and id in rare situations (you absolutely need to have yout id with you irrespective of infrequently you actually need to show it).

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

That requires a single source of truth for which names go with which tickets. Which is going to be a problem if tickets need to be transferred in contexts where users don't have internet access (but they do have local connectivity between devices) or in contexts where the venue doesn't have internet access. Or in cases where the single source of truth might be vulnerable to attack or doesn't have the resources to handle the load at certain times. I don't have the solution explicitly, but it seems like it ought to be possible to do this such that PII need not be collected. Tickets could be cryptographic proofs that a chain of custody exists and meets certain criteria. The proofs could be constructed at transfer time and verified at admission, no servers in the loop anywhere. Yeah, we'll come up against the CAP theorem eventually, but we might find that the imposed constraints are workable.

immibis 2y ago
> Which is going to be a problem if tickets need to be transferred in contexts where users don't have internet access (but they do have local connectivity between devices) or in contexts where the venue doesn't have internet access. You know as well as I do that TicketMaster won't allow any of that, because it means they miss out on selling another ticket.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  I was operating under the assumption that the goal was to replace TicketMaster with an open protocol.

lilyball 2y ago

Flying requires an ID. Attending a concert should not. Any solution that is solved by "simple, just require an ID" is not a solution.

itishappy 2y ago
> Flying requires an ID. Attending a concert should not. Why though? Not disagreeing per say because I'd have thought so too, but upon reflection... I assume the main reason airlines require an ID is safety and security. We maintain a denied parties list and use identity verification to make it as difficult as possible to fly a plane into a crowded venue. Border control is another issue, but there's plenty of intra-country or intra-state flights where this isn't an issue. Ticketmaster sells unverified access to crowded venues.
- jmb99 2y ago
  Is your argument that people should be unable to attend concerts/etc without presenting ID? I for one am not a fan of that idea
  - itishappy 2y ago
    I'm not a fan of it either. Just sayin' that concerts and events are where the densest crowds are. Are we protecting people from doing things to events more than the events themselves? I'd hope this is an argument for more granular control. I'd love to fly short-hops without ID, but maybe TSwift concerts should require something? (Edit: Do they? Events/venues do start to have their own security at some point. Flights also have different controls for national vs international.) I'm also probably overly discounting border control. Traceability in particular. I'm not a fan of this either.
  - fnfjfk 2y ago
    You need to show one to get a drinking wristband anyways (and avoid the hand Xs), or into any 16+, 18+, or 21+ show.
    - 2y ago

llsf 2y ago

The issue is most likely about throughput. You want to let fans enter the venue as quick as possible. Most venues have lots of gates, but still the latency at each gate has to be a handful of seconds per ticket. Having to validate both ticket and ID would easily double or triple that time.

crftr 2y ago
Today's digital entry experience is far from frictionless. Might as well add a scan of the PDF417 barcode on the back of the latest state ID cards. I just went to a MLB game yesterday, and the digital process was: - Open ticket app - scan ticket 1 - scan ticket 2 I imagine this could have been: - Open ticket app - scan PDF417 - scan ticket 1 - scan ticket 2
- llsf 2y ago
  Hopefully in the near future (https://nfc-forum.org/news/2024-07-nfc-forum-defines-next-generation-of-contactless-user-experience-with-multi-purpose-tap/ https://nfc-forum.org/news/2024-07-nfc-forum-defines-next-ge...) you would just need to tap you phone once, and get your ID passed to the scanner, along all the tickets for that venue & time. No more opening app, and showing different tickets and IDs. That would clear that argument.
- eqvinox 2y ago
  For one, this is a problem world wide, but OK, you can try to solve it for the US. But for another, not everyone has a state ID card. In particular the 7.1% of the population that does not have U.S. citizenship will have varying amounts of US documentation, depending on how long they're in the US for and whether they're there legally. And you really want to be able to sell tickets to tourists.
627467 2y ago
I keep reading about this argument but Olympics and World Cup matches are arguably as large events (if not larger) and they place name on ticket and check ID at entrance. people complain at ticketmaster yet seem to bend over backwards to justify the state of affairs

reddalo 2y ago

Italy solved this. Five years ago, a new law enforced ID-checking when you enter any big events (like concerts with an audience larger than 5000 people). Tickets have your name on it, and you can only change the name or resell them through the official seller (so, third party resellers are out of the game). Also, every reselling transaction is registered and can be inspected by the Italian Rightsholder Agency (SIAE).

rangestransform 2y ago
I’d rather not solve it than let the state have more information about my transactions
cyberbolt23 2y ago
Because this, and more very strange rules it is very hard for ticketing systems to get into the Italian market. Some examples: - not allowed to change to time or name of the event after the 1st ticket is sold - only allowed section names in halls from a know list - free tickets on events... can only do this under strange conditions - smart card application, for encryption, must run on a physical server in Italy. You should not be able to log into the ticketing box office if that smart card application is not running.
- reddalo 2y ago
  You know many details about Italian ticketing systems, are you working in the industry?

bagels 2y ago

This improves the security over airline tickets. There was a recent story of someone taking pictures of other people's boarding passes, and using that to board the plane. With this ticketmaster scheme, unless the person has access to the secret keys, the pass would only be valid for a few seconds, likely defeating this attack against boarding passes. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/texas-man-boards-delta-flight-using-a-photo-of-a-girls-boarding-pass/3494722/ https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/texas-man-board...

Zopieux 2y ago
How often has this been a problem though? How about not keeping your boarding pass, or ticket, or credit card for that matter, visible for the world? Just put it in your wallet, I don't know. This is security FUD. Stop solving problems that do not exist to the point where it makes the news when they do happen, once a century. This DRM scheme concretely creates millions of small annoyances to millions of people and wasting our time as a society.
- bagels 2y ago
  It also happens that pranksters can cancel your travel if your boarding passes make it on to Twitter or other social media. It's not a non-problem like you make it out to be. Sure, it won't happen to you or me, because we know it is a risk to expose these documents, but that is not true of most people. Maybe the DRM is not worth it. I actually think it's obnoxious for concert tickets (I recently had to deal with this system, and I was not thrilled about installing an app from a company that I think is using unfair business practices).
  - lmm 2y ago
    > It also happens that pranksters can cancel your travel if your boarding passes make it on to Twitter or other social media. The security theater of checking ID does nothing to stop this. What's your point?
    - 2y ago

dawnerd 2y ago

Airlines are starting to use rotating barcodes as well. Heck some are even switching to purely facial recognition.

johnflan 2y ago

I’m not sure that would fly in Europe. And I personally don’t want to hand over my id to use a ticket

m0dest 2y ago
Exactly. The privacy characteristics of government ID cards are worse than any other solution. When sharing such an ID, a person is providing several global, stable identifiers (e.g. ID number, full legal name). For adtech and data brokers, this is the ultimate fingerprint for tracking and matching. In a perfect world, the digitization of these IDs would come with modern digital privacy and security. Scanning your ID number would only provide a recipient-specific ID that couldn't be matched with other vendors. Age eligibility and driver's licensing status would be presented as separate signed attestations that share no other data. We aren't even heading in that direction yet.

nedt 2y ago

I wouldn’t bring my ID to a concert. I don’t have my wallet with me and even if I would they wouldn’t like me to have a backpack. I‘m coming as light and minimal as possible and also would hate to lose my ID jumping around at a concert.

627467 2y ago
...yet you have a phone (for the moving barcode and whatnot) which is heavier and bulkier than a card?
- nedt 2y ago
  True. I feel it, it's locked without my face and I can track it.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    Have a picture of your ID on your phone, like every other person has. Or bring a photocopy of your ID that you can throw away after entering.
    - hnuser435 2y ago
      I don't.
    - nedt 2y ago
      That's not valid. And almost no one would except it. The real digital version is still in the making.
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        I knew this comment would come. But you're wrong. A photo of your ID is accepted almost everywhere, and especially at a ticketed event where the only purpose is to match your face to the name on the ticket. They're not the police, they just want to check that you're the person who should have the ticket.

MattGrommes 2y ago

Some venues do this already and the scalpers buy an additional ticket to burn on themselves so they can get their customer in the gate. It just goes into the cost of doing business. I agree this is probably one of the best ways to stop scalpers but it's not foolproof.

muppetman 2y ago

No, it's not. At my work here we'll all go online to try and get tickets to a big gig. One of us might get in, so that person will get ~8 tickets or whatever the maximum is. And then we split them between us, transfering over cash etc. If we have a few left over we'll sell them to friends for the ticket value. But none of us have any intention of lining up with the others to get in. We want to go with our partners, our own friends etc. I want Bob, Terry or Bazzy to by able to buy tickets for me (or me for Bob, Terry or Bazza) but I do not want to have to meet up with Bob, Terry and Bazza and stand in line with them all to get in. So yea, it's not trivial. I wish it was, I farkin' hate scalpers.

627467 2y ago
how is this not the same as 8 people trying to find airline tickets for everyone? you can buy tickets for different passengers. some airlines/travel agencies even allow for name change for a fee.
condiment 2y ago
This is trivial and solutions exist in the wild already. If you buy tix for the Paris Olympics, you can transfer them to your friends or you can assign their names to the tickets directly. The interesting mechanism there is that you can buy a lot of seats at once, but you don’t get to choose where they are exactly, only the section. So in every case you’re going to have people buying big lots of tickets and distributing them to friends and family after the fact.

cbsmith 2y ago

Yeah, except NO. A lot of people think live event ticketing is the same problem as airplane tickets, but they really aren't. As an example, there are rules about requiring identification for commercial flight. There are rules against requiring identification for live events.

mixmastamyk 2y ago
Where has rules prohibiting it? Maybe will move. :D

627467 2y ago

+1 to this. also doesn't Olympics and World Cup class events also face similar issue as concerts, and they allow for fair'ish purchase and resale by private people, but only through their platform?

dclowd9901 2y ago

I’ve heard the argument that forcing people to have an ID is anti folks with disabilities and anti-poor since it requires someone to go to an issuing agency to obtain and pay for one, which could be putting someone out who has a mobility disability or doesn’t have a lot of money. I’m not making the argument but it’s an argument I’ve heard.

shiroiushi 2y ago
If the government needs people to have IDs, then maybe the government should provide those IDs for free...
- dclowd9901 2y ago
  I happen to agree, but it isn’t only the government that requires IDs if private companies are asking for them as well.

throwaway2037 2y ago

I agree, mostly. What do you do for people without an ID (and without a parent)? Think of the number of people at a Taylor Swift concert who are under 18 -- a lot. Also, checking the name between ticket and ID will slow down entrance by 2-5 times, I guess.

otherme123 2y ago
I was recently at a Festival that requires ticket + ID (https://www.resurrectionfest.es https://www.resurrectionfest.es). The key to success was to put a little more personal at the gates, maybe 15 people instead of 10. But it is also true that we have the ID document issued in our early teens it not before. Each ticket verification takes 3 more seconds extra to verify the ID matches, no big deal. Said festival does their own ticket re-sale to avoid scalping but mainly to avoid shady sites that are known to allow the selling of counterfeits. You can only cede your ticket, not sell it. It is not perfect (e.g. if you don't find a buyer for the same price, you can't sell it at a lost to recoup some money. You get your ticket back) but at least is not as bad as the one from Ticketmaster.

jcul 2y ago

This has its own problems. It makes it difficult to swap tickets. A music festival I went to recently charged 30 euro to change the name on a ticket.

gorbachev 2y ago

Ticketmaster says: NIH

breakfastduck 2y ago

This is a horrible horrible idea. It'd then be impossible to buy a few tickets to an event with the intention of finding people to come after the fact.