5 ms·

Ticketmaster Ticketfast Barcode Format

49 points by georgiecasey 12y ago

smackfu 12y ago
Similar issues when people post scans of mail they get, and don't realize the barcode encodes the same info that the stuff they redacted had.
autism_hurts 12y ago
Hehe, love this. Ticketmaster deserves every ounce of scorn, similar to Comcast, ATT & VZW
georgemcbay 12y ago
Using a proprietary barcode format won't help if people post the barcode image itself (which they do in the example image provided). More work might be required to 'unskew' perspective shifts to get it back looking like the original if the photo wasn't taken from directly in front of the printout, but barcode readers are generally designed to deal with that sort of skew anyway. I remember when the Xbox One came out last year a lot of people were posting ebay listings for digital download games in the form of scannable QR codes and posting those QR codes as proof of the item existing (since otherwise it is all digital). Not surprisingly people claimed those QR codes using the ebay images without ever buying the item.
rtanaka 12y ago
Has this happened to anyone? What would happen if you showed up and find that your ticket is invalid. I'm guessing it varies by venue but is there any recourse? I can't imagine they'd just turn you away without at least a little investigation.
- codyb 12y ago
  It's generally not the people at the doors job to investigate. If your ticket doesn't scan they assume you're the one with the fake or that someone went in and came out with multiple tickets to get more people in. Generally, as far as I've seen, you'd be SOOL. (Shit out of luck, is that an acronym yet?)
  - ilikemustard 12y ago
    From what I've seen, the acronym typically doesn't include "of", and is simply "SOL".
    - bjohnso5 12y ago
      I think it's generally abbreviated that way because it's phrased "Shit Outta Luck"
- dan1234 12y ago
  The door staff are only really interested in getting people safely into and out of the venue. They'd probably just tell you to complain at the ticket office (if it's still open they might be able to verify your credit card?) or phone next day.
- nsfmc 12y ago
  this hasn't happened to me, but i witnessed it at Outside Lands SF this year and it is devastating to watch. there is basically zero recourse for the buyer of the ticket that scans invalid and many of them have very legitimate looking pdfs and emails they got from craigslist. neither the ticketmaster folks nor the venue folks tend to be super compassionate in my experience. it's a real mess though, the venues often have no in-and-out privileges (possibly due to how scanning invalidates some 24-hour key), so even as a law-abiding consumer, you're stuck at an event for the whole time just to deal with ticketmaster's implementation details. i'm sure others have said this, but that is definitely a business that wants disrupting. there's so many bits of tech that could make this experience better and safer for consumers, but i suspect ticket fees are more profitable than user experience.
  - cdcarter 12y ago
    I just worked admissions for a festival in Seattle, and we have started seeing scalpers actually walk with the customer to the gate, and verify they get entrance. If the scalped ticket isn't valid, the scalper will refund right there. People have stopped trusting scalpers with print outs, because they often don't work. The resellers are realizing this and offering guarantee. As an aside, many festivals and venues don't disallow re-entry due to TM implementation (I've been to enough TM ticketed events that have re-entry). They ban in-and-out so that you cannot go elsewhere to drink or eat without the festival surcharge and kickback.
  - girvo 12y ago
    Disrupting ticketing is such a painful thing, but its something I've been passionate about for a number of years. Unfortunately, the way things are run at least in Australia means that venues have exclusive agreements with various ticketing providers, so it becomes exceedingly capital intensive to break in :(
- fredup 12y ago
  You almost certainly aren't going to see the show. In theory it should be simple to identify who you are in conflict with if the ticket is not general admission. They would just have to send an usher to the seat. However, it is difficult to determine who defrauded who without a whole lot of investigation. You would have to establish the entire chain of custody for both of the tickets. Three possibilities with different culprits are: the original purchaser double sold the tickets, a third-party got the barcode and sold a fraudulent ticket to whoever is in your seat, or the person in your seat made the fraudulent ticket themselves.
badhairday 12y ago
Just this morning I was selling tickets to an Interpol concert in Seattle and realized people on Craigslist were posting pictures of their tickets with the barcodes visible. I'm sure it's happened before.
- megablast 12y ago
  So you could easily scan it, go in early, get free access to the ticket, and the purchaser is going to blame the guy he bought it off, not you.
derrik0709 12y ago
As someone who works in the industry (but not Ticketmaster) and has spoken frequently to higher ups at TM, people should realize that the majority of the time "handling charges" are a way for performers to generate more revenue from sales while deflecting the bad PR to Ticketmaster. That's one of the services TM provides to their clients (performers/venues). If you're a performer and you want to sell tickets for a face value of "$50", but generate revenue at the $60 or $65/ticket range, you add on some fees and let TM take the hit from the fans for "gouging" them. It's very common.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- eli 12y ago
  I'm sure that is happening, but do kickbacks to the artist really make up a majority of the fees? I find that surprising.
- mkhaytman 12y ago
  I've heard the same thing from their CMO when I spoke with him, but I think that in itself is just something they tell people.
- cridenour 12y ago
  I've heard it's almost always the venue - but same thing. TM is happy to take the hate, they're used to it.
- disposition2 12y ago
  Hard to tell considering they have a monopoly on the original purchase industry (most venues, and I'd venture to guess 90%+ of venues that would actually attract large acts) <strike>and the reseller industry as well </strike>. The worst is going to the box office to buy a ticket and being told that they can't sell the ticket at the box office, you have to buy through TM or you have to pay the same fees as if you bought through TM's site / services.
  - cdcarter 12y ago
dan1234 12y ago
One festival I bought tickets for not only had standard barcodes but also sequential ticket numbers!
- cdcarter 12y ago
  Many times the order item numbers will be sequential within the order, but each order will have a different number. You can order three tickets and you'll get 08737401, 08737402, and 08737403, but the next person to order three tickets will get 08343201, 08343202, and 08343203.
pbreit 12y ago
Is this one of those theoretical problems that doesn't show up in reality?
- jastanton 12y ago
  If you search eBay for tickets and see that someone snapshot a ticket they are trying to sell it sounds like it's pretty easy to steal it. So quite possibly it is more than just theoretical. Though if you take a picture of the barcode it seems like you're just asking for trouble. But people don't really think about those kind of things when they post to social media...
- tehwebguy 12y ago
  You'd think so but people actually post pictures like that. Not sure if it's been taken advantage of but I have a feeling this has: https://twitter.com/search?q=my%20new%20credit%20card%20pic.twitter.com&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=my%20new%20credit%20card%20pic....
  - LeoPanthera 12y ago
    A handy real time feed: https://twitter.com/NeedADebitCard https://twitter.com/NeedADebitCard
    - scintill76 12y ago
      Anyone know a story behind this? Some of these have to know exactly what they're doing, so are they trolling or joking or something?
      - colinbartlett 12y ago
        Sadly, I am quite certain the story is that people are just naive.
- georgiecasey 12y ago
  OP here. Well I've never heard if it being abused yet so I suppose you're right, but it seems so easy. For the festival I referred to in my post, it only has a capacity of 40k, yet I ended up with 6 of these tickets that I gleaned from eBay and local auction sites.
prawn 12y ago
Could you use some form of public/private key combination to prove that you have a ticket to something without actually giving away a digital ticket?
- lutusp 12y ago
  Yes -- a scheme like this is used to prove the origin of a digitally signed email without revealing the sender's private key. So there's a model for this functionality.

49 points by georgiecasey 12y ago

Similar issues when people post scans of mail they get, and don't realize the barcode encodes the same info that the stuff they redacted had.

autism_hurts 12y ago

Hehe, love this. Ticketmaster deserves every ounce of scorn, similar to Comcast, ATT & VZW

georgemcbay 12y ago

Using a proprietary barcode format won't help if people post the barcode image itself (which they do in the example image provided). More work might be required to 'unskew' perspective shifts to get it back looking like the original if the photo wasn't taken from directly in front of the printout, but barcode readers are generally designed to deal with that sort of skew anyway. I remember when the Xbox One came out last year a lot of people were posting ebay listings for digital download games in the form of scannable QR codes and posting those QR codes as proof of the item existing (since otherwise it is all digital). Not surprisingly people claimed those QR codes using the ebay images without ever buying the item.

rtanaka 12y ago

Has this happened to anyone? What would happen if you showed up and find that your ticket is invalid. I'm guessing it varies by venue but is there any recourse? I can't imagine they'd just turn you away without at least a little investigation.

codyb 12y ago
It's generally not the people at the doors job to investigate. If your ticket doesn't scan they assume you're the one with the fake or that someone went in and came out with multiple tickets to get more people in. Generally, as far as I've seen, you'd be SOOL. (Shit out of luck, is that an acronym yet?)
- ilikemustard 12y ago
  From what I've seen, the acronym typically doesn't include "of", and is simply "SOL".
  - bjohnso5 12y ago
    I think it's generally abbreviated that way because it's phrased "Shit Outta Luck"
dan1234 12y ago
The door staff are only really interested in getting people safely into and out of the venue. They'd probably just tell you to complain at the ticket office (if it's still open they might be able to verify your credit card?) or phone next day.
nsfmc 12y ago
this hasn't happened to me, but i witnessed it at Outside Lands SF this year and it is devastating to watch. there is basically zero recourse for the buyer of the ticket that scans invalid and many of them have very legitimate looking pdfs and emails they got from craigslist. neither the ticketmaster folks nor the venue folks tend to be super compassionate in my experience. it's a real mess though, the venues often have no in-and-out privileges (possibly due to how scanning invalidates some 24-hour key), so even as a law-abiding consumer, you're stuck at an event for the whole time just to deal with ticketmaster's implementation details. i'm sure others have said this, but that is definitely a business that wants disrupting. there's so many bits of tech that could make this experience better and safer for consumers, but i suspect ticket fees are more profitable than user experience.
- cdcarter 12y ago
  I just worked admissions for a festival in Seattle, and we have started seeing scalpers actually walk with the customer to the gate, and verify they get entrance. If the scalped ticket isn't valid, the scalper will refund right there. People have stopped trusting scalpers with print outs, because they often don't work. The resellers are realizing this and offering guarantee. As an aside, many festivals and venues don't disallow re-entry due to TM implementation (I've been to enough TM ticketed events that have re-entry). They ban in-and-out so that you cannot go elsewhere to drink or eat without the festival surcharge and kickback.
- girvo 12y ago
  Disrupting ticketing is such a painful thing, but its something I've been passionate about for a number of years. Unfortunately, the way things are run at least in Australia means that venues have exclusive agreements with various ticketing providers, so it becomes exceedingly capital intensive to break in :(
fredup 12y ago
You almost certainly aren't going to see the show. In theory it should be simple to identify who you are in conflict with if the ticket is not general admission. They would just have to send an usher to the seat. However, it is difficult to determine who defrauded who without a whole lot of investigation. You would have to establish the entire chain of custody for both of the tickets. Three possibilities with different culprits are: the original purchaser double sold the tickets, a third-party got the barcode and sold a fraudulent ticket to whoever is in your seat, or the person in your seat made the fraudulent ticket themselves.

badhairday 12y ago

Just this morning I was selling tickets to an Interpol concert in Seattle and realized people on Craigslist were posting pictures of their tickets with the barcodes visible. I'm sure it's happened before.

megablast 12y ago
So you could easily scan it, go in early, get free access to the ticket, and the purchaser is going to blame the guy he bought it off, not you.

derrik0709 12y ago

As someone who works in the industry (but not Ticketmaster) and has spoken frequently to higher ups at TM, people should realize that the majority of the time "handling charges" are a way for performers to generate more revenue from sales while deflecting the bad PR to Ticketmaster. That's one of the services TM provides to their clients (performers/venues). If you're a performer and you want to sell tickets for a face value of "$50", but generate revenue at the $60 or $65/ticket range, you add on some fees and let TM take the hit from the fans for "gouging" them. It's very common.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
eli 12y ago
I'm sure that is happening, but do kickbacks to the artist really make up a majority of the fees? I find that surprising.
mkhaytman 12y ago
I've heard the same thing from their CMO when I spoke with him, but I think that in itself is just something they tell people.
cridenour 12y ago
I've heard it's almost always the venue - but same thing. TM is happy to take the hate, they're used to it.
disposition2 12y ago
Hard to tell considering they have a monopoly on the original purchase industry (most venues, and I'd venture to guess 90%+ of venues that would actually attract large acts) <strike>and the reseller industry as well </strike>. The worst is going to the box office to buy a ticket and being told that they can't sell the ticket at the box office, you have to buy through TM or you have to pay the same fees as if you bought through TM's site / services.
- cdcarter 12y ago

dan1234 12y ago

One festival I bought tickets for not only had standard barcodes but also sequential ticket numbers!

cdcarter 12y ago
Many times the order item numbers will be sequential within the order, but each order will have a different number. You can order three tickets and you'll get 08737401, 08737402, and 08737403, but the next person to order three tickets will get 08343201, 08343202, and 08343203.

pbreit 12y ago

Is this one of those theoretical problems that doesn't show up in reality?

jastanton 12y ago
If you search eBay for tickets and see that someone snapshot a ticket they are trying to sell it sounds like it's pretty easy to steal it. So quite possibly it is more than just theoretical. Though if you take a picture of the barcode it seems like you're just asking for trouble. But people don't really think about those kind of things when they post to social media...
tehwebguy 12y ago
You'd think so but people actually post pictures like that. Not sure if it's been taken advantage of but I have a feeling this has: https://twitter.com/search?q=my%20new%20credit%20card%20pic.twitter.com&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=my%20new%20credit%20card%20pic....
- LeoPanthera 12y ago
  A handy real time feed: https://twitter.com/NeedADebitCard https://twitter.com/NeedADebitCard
  - scintill76 12y ago
    Anyone know a story behind this? Some of these have to know exactly what they're doing, so are they trolling or joking or something?
    - colinbartlett 12y ago
      Sadly, I am quite certain the story is that people are just naive.
georgiecasey 12y ago
OP here. Well I've never heard if it being abused yet so I suppose you're right, but it seems so easy. For the festival I referred to in my post, it only has a capacity of 40k, yet I ended up with 6 of these tickets that I gleaned from eBay and local auction sites.

prawn 12y ago

Could you use some form of public/private key combination to prove that you have a ticket to something without actually giving away a digital ticket?

lutusp 12y ago
Yes -- a scheme like this is used to prove the origin of a digitally signed email without revealing the sender's private key. So there's a model for this functionality.