Mobile ticketing could beat the touts, says Nokia

Source: TechDigest

Queue1Nokia’s high-profile mobile ticketing trial at last night’s Guns’n’Roses gig went seemingly without a hitch, which is more than can be said for the band’s arrival on stage. Billed to start at 9pm, Axl and chums didn’t appear until 10.40pm. I sincerely hope this was due to a backstage strop due to too many brown M&Ms or not enough cocaine-toting dwarves, rather than anything mundane like traffic.

Anyway, getting into the gig with my m-ticket went swimmingly – a quick scan followed by wristband attachment – and as a bonus, it also involved jumping the queue of paper ticket-holders. According to Nokia, 60% of the people who bought tickets for last night’s gig through the Ticketrush website chose the mobile option.

Meanwhile, Nokia UK’s head of marketing Simon Lloyd reckons that m-tickets could eventually kill off the hated ticket touts who hang around outside gigs. “It’s removing the element of ticket touts,” he says. “It’s a secure environment, so you can’t pass these tickets on and can’t hack in. Paper tickets are always open to abuse.”