NFT tickets can be the solution to ticket sales
The NFT industry is moving on from expensive JPEGs and knocking on the doors of a ticketing industry in dire need of reform.
The NFT market has been in poor health since the Terra and Celcius collapses in late spring/early summer last year. Monthly volume fell from nearly $3.3 billion in May to just over $1 billion in June, according to DappRadar. After the FTX crash, NFT prices fell another 15% in a single day. The contagion from the stock market collapse caused widespread panic about all blockchain-based products, including cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
However, the market crash of 2022 has accelerated trends that were already taking place. Investors and traders are becoming less convinced by quick profits and are looking for NFTs with more utility. One use case that is quietly entering the mainstream is the ticketing industry.
Last year, British electronic trio Clean Bandit announced that they were using NFTs as tickets for their own UK tour. The initiative is part of the Seatlab Sounds University freshers tour, a series of events run by NFT ticket provider, SeatlabNFT. The platform enables fans to purchase NFT tickets that can be saved, stored and sold for SeatlabNFT’s own crypto coin, $SEAT.
Last year, Kevin Hart’s “Confessions of the Hart” NFT collection also included a package that gave certain holders access to some of his shows. DeFy Tickets, another blockchain ticketing platform, partnered with Lupe Fiasco and Gucci Mane for a summer show last year.
From paper to phone to NFT
The NFT’s takeover of the ticketing industry would be the second revolution of its kind this century. In 2000, there was no other option than to have the tickets sent to your address or picked up at the venue. As broadband and email services became a staple, providers began offering email tickets that you could print at home. As the smartphone took over, the need for a printer disappeared and a QR quickly became the standard way to attend your preferred live event.
This colossal market provides great opportunities for NFT tickets to make inroads. The global events industry was worth $1.4 trillion in 2019 and is expected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2028.
While QR codes can put the ticket right in your pocket, NFTs can add a new layer of benefits for vendors and fans alike. With its built-in transparency, blockchain is a ready-made solution for event organizers who want an immutable public overview of who has bought a ticket.
NFTs can also turn tickets into more three-dimensional products. Owners can get special digital collectibles like setlists or exclusive access to new songs or videos. Holders of these tickets can also take advantage of ticket-only experiences, including invitations to after parties or special virtual events. In this regard, your NFT becomes more akin to a fan club membership.
Like other NFTs, tickets in this new era can also be generative PFP (Profile Picture) NFTs that you can share and showcase on social media. Are you able to get a sought-after festival ticket? Well, in the future, there may well be more than one way to brag about it. Do not judge; you will too.
NFT tickets can put an end to ticket sales
NFTs like tickets have been a long-running topic since the asset class first entered the popular conversation in 2020. However, the events sector is only now waking up to its ability to solve an age-old problem. Touts and scalps have long been a headache for the industry, as price-gouges on the secondary market, much to the chagrin of hardcore fans.
NFT tickets can be governed “by smart contracts to enable things like royalty splits on secondary resale, opening up a new revenue stream for sellers and price caps to prevent the kind of uncontrolled price gouging that currently plagues the industry,” says Charlie Gardiner, Content Manager at SeatLabNFT , a Web2 ticketing solution that has recently started using non-fungible tokens. “We also provide promoters with unparalleled data about their customers and their ticketing ecosystem thanks to the transparent nature of blockchain technology.”
ThetaPass, a form of NFT-based tickets from Theta Network, uses the same principle for online content. According to Wes Levitt, their chief strategy officer, their ticketing solution is easily transferable and impossible to counterfeit. (It’s estimated that about 12% of all event tickets are fraudulent.) “This means fewer users are exploited with fake tickets, and creators can offer event or content access to fans simply by sending a token to their wallet.”
“It solves the big pain points that ticketing has right now, which are counterfeit tickets and the inability of users to freely transfer tickets between themselves,” he says. Theta has already implemented this solution with the Word Poker Tour and to access Samsung’s Galaxy Store. “We’re already seeing it being used for online crypto conferences and offline ones like ThetaCon.”
We are never, ever, ever … Get a fair fare
Adopting NFT technology will likely reduce ticket debacles like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Last year, Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program fell flat when – despite its intentions – scalpers made off with a significant number of the prized tickets.
More than 2,000,000 tickets were sold during the planned pre-sale, and Ticketmaster blamed “a staggering number of bot attacks, as well as fans who did not have invite codes, for driving unprecedented traffic to the site”. Prices on the secondary market were later seen as high as $22,000.
These are exactly the kinds of problems NFTs are best equipped to handle, says Charlie from SeatLabNFT. “The ticketing industry is ripe for disruption; little has changed in the way tickets are distributed in the last decade, and there is clear public discontent, which was recently shown when tickets for major artists went on sale.”
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