TJ Chambers
Returning to the usual ticketing-obsessive content, this post discusses the ‘broken’ nature of the industry and how new ‘disruptive’ tech, for example Blockchain, NFTs, or AI, routinely claim to be able to ‘fix’ ticketing from both a technical perspective and also by apparently restoring ‘fairness’ to the market.
© duck.ai
It’s The New Thing – Same As It Ever Was
Unlike touring or venue management when the load-out has finished, with pa, lights, staging, backline and artists long gone, with show reports written, security debriefed, and powered floor scrubber/dryers, sweepers and sanitisers methodically working their way around the empty auditorium, there is usually a brief period for reflecting upon what has just occurred.
Of the spectacle experienced, as well as a number of more formal performance metrics relating to the attendance, F&B, merchandise, and/or programmes sold, taxi drop-offs and pickups, or parking slots used, Instagram and TikTok’s posted, and other event-related engagement.
By comparison the ticketing process doesn’t pause, with its continual cycle of preparation for, and then the auto-mechanical delivery of pre-sales, followed by on-sales, the coordination of box office operations, ticket manifest management, then show concierge and hospitality, immediately followed by the financial account reconciliation and settlement at event maturity.
Alongside all of which is the back-to-back preparation for the next pre-sale, and so the cycle continues.
Ticketing with its perpetual state of agitation rarely provides the opportunity for a considered review of an individual concert, match, or residency. And even less time to fully appreciate any single-event outcome of A/B tested variations in the UX, effectiveness of any new CTA or guest checkout optionality etc.
Rather the focus is primarily on what’s next …next …next ….
This constant 24-7/365 of operational momentum is one reason modern technologies and/or services developed for ticketing tends to be initially slow-to-be-adopted (often externally viewed as an act of luddite avoidance), and then seemingly implemented overnight.
When new features, functions or code releases are incorporated within platforms, it is via a deliberate and pre-planned process as the ticketing ecosystem is an unforgiving environment with functionality rarely offering little flexibility beyond its original design, and operationally the mercantile sector offers little or no down-time, albeit ticketing personnel are used to an oft-insufficient level of notice provided by clients for any externally timetabled on-sale.
Historically, ticketing always had the veneer of being a technology business sector, but it has always been heavily reliant on manual intervention, with workarounds deployed to various systems crashes or inadequate solutions operating way past their code-life, accompanied by poor people investment, training, and support.
However, the industry, especially its larger operators, at least until the pandemic, didn’t really have the opportunity, or desire, to stop, review and/or implement fundamentally strategic changes, so much as implement tactical quick-wins, with more-of-the-same, short-termism, compare-contrast pricing and service offering the norm.
With new ticketing paradigms – call centres, the internet, social media, mobile etc. typically treated as a bolt-on to the core platform.
This is one reason why ticketing innovation is therefore widely perceived to be delivered by new (weightless) entrants who are not held back by the legacy of historical decisions, practices or technologies, or a pre-existing way of doing business.
Ticketing Works
As a technical science and methodology, ticketing is at its core, a highly commoditised arrangement of limited functions and features i.e., Date and Time of Entry and/or Performance, Seat, Row, Block etc., bolted onto a rudimentary checkout solution with little basket-flexibility, and often with limited insight to previous consumer bookings, or the ability to make recommendations for alternates, upgrades, or to reward loyalty.
Generic ticketing service providers are orientated towards the retail, marketing and distribution of inventory, whether via online affiliate or mobile, or offline kiosk, outlet and/or walk-up box office, working on behalf of the event Rights Owners (whether Artist, Attraction, Sport Franchise, Promoter-Producer, Venue, Media Partner or Sponsor, individually and/or collectively), all delivered by market-standardised business practises with broadly market-rate pricing, reflective of those Rights Owners contractual obligations, fiscal and service requirements.
Ticketing is therefore a supply-side led sector, which pays lip-service to the concept of serving the consumer.
Market share for individual ticket retail agencies is largely dependent upon serving the inventory supplier, who typically requires a standard set of market-comparable technologies and services but more importantly a financial incentive (whether service fee rebates, facility fee commissions, marketing fee contributions or similar) for the allocation of their ticketing business interests.
Despite the limitations, of these commoditised technologies and services, with margins routinely sacrificed to clients (aka inventory suppliers), most of the time, ticketing works, at least for the industry.
Perhaps not terribly well for the end-consumer, especially in comparison with other forms of ecommerce, but millions, and millions, and millions of people attend events, successfully gaining entrance to cinemas, museums, theme parks, stadia and festivals or to in-person concerts, experiences and performances of every possible variation.
Most of the time ticketing works.
But.
Ticketing is ‘Broken’
It’s a generally accepted truism that event ticketing is ‘broken’ with continual ‘bad news’ media coverage of the failures of the industry – the main example being when events sell-out i.e. when ticketing does its job, but when some consumers fail to successfully acquire tickets – with attendant reports of their frustration being directly caused by (alleged) deceptive levels of inventory released to the public, or ticketing fraud including counterfeit stock, automated bots, unauthorised resale, opaque distribution practices and unfair pricing.
It is routinely claimed that the leading example of the failure of ticketing is when event demand exceeds ticket supply – as though building architecture, licensed premises or logistical diaries can flex unendingly to accommodate every demand for entry.
Ticketing is also apparently ‘fractured’ by the endless and discrete / opaque allocations to multiple pre-sale partners, ticket bundlers, and packagers – despite the industry theory that this practice enables the event to be marketed to as wide and diverse an audience as possible.
Ticketing is also ’defective’ when the (primary) yield management pricing programs or the (secondary) marketplaces lead to ‘unfair’ price inflation – although if the event Rights Owners are participating in the uplift from original / notional face value is this unfair to everyone?
It could be argued that consumers should ignore their FOMO, and simply refuse to buy over-priced tickets, and then watch the market correct itself.
And if there is criminal fraud with regards to payment processing, speculative ticket listing, or automated purchase bots, then the various regulatory authorities and policing actions combined with the move to secure digitalisation of ticketing will inevitably restrict the level, frequency, and types of abuse.
Albeit the current lack of aggressive legislation, coupled with a low prioritisation of enforcement suggests that law-makers have other priorities, and the industry is fundamentally fragmented by competing market shares rather than working together to encourage the harmonisation of technology standards and protocols, adoption of best-practice, or even share market sizing data, pricing trends etc., let alone coordinate an industry-wide campaign about a single issue which directly enriches some operators and disgusts others.
‘Ticketing Is Not Fair’
An unpopular and alternate viewpoint might be, that ticketing is not ‘broken.’ It works well (enough) for most of the various stakeholders, most of the time.
That the economic and political superstructure of live entertainment has designed the architectural processes of ticketing to suit their purposes, and frankly to hell with anyone else.
This feeds into the perception, that ticketing (as is) is unfair.
For example, not fair for (some) artists, some of the time.
Where the artist has reached an agreement with the promoter over the ticket face value, but then is aggrieved to find that various ticketing services fees may add some 25% or more to the cost of admission, with no transparency of who-gets-what, or any (fiscal) consideration to the artist, or understanding of the impact on the end ticket-buyer i.e. their audience.
The industry has been quite successful at recuperating / re-engaging with previously disgruntled or even dissident artists including those who once lobbied against restrictive venue ticketing contracts, capping their access to artist presale inventory, or limiting the ability of artists to transfer ticket allocations outside the venue box office.
Or those who artists who once objected to the enabling of unauthorised resale, who now have adopted platinum-pricing.
Or more recently, artists who were apparently unaware of the implementation of dynamic pricing signed off by their management and promoters and delivered by their official ticketing partner. But they still banked the uplift.
There is also the issue that artists typically do not speak with one unified voice – unless it is for a charity record. And there are numerous historical or contemporary examples of fiscally driven and selfish decisions taken by the otherwise most noble of artists.
The other constituency that may consider ticketing as being intrinsically unfair is (of course) the consumer.
But as previously explained, so long as they succeed in the frustrating lottery of advance ticket purchase, and continue to buy ever more expensive tickets, sold further and further in advance of the actual events, with fewer and fewer rights to refund, exchange or resale, then, so far as the industry is concerned, all is good i.e. let the consumer cashflow continue to underpin the operational flywheel of live entertainment.
Or in other words, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’
So, any consideration for providing access to culture or sport regardless of the ability to pay is not of primary concern to the free market / commercial operators.
Nor is the mental or spiritual wellbeing of the young or the elderly, those in education, health, or public service, and those whose work or volunteerism selflessly supports our communities, or others with lower incomes who may miss out from the life-enriching spectacle of live entertainment.
None of that matters so much as the ability to buy the ticket, again, and again, and again.
Tech can ‘fix’ ticketing
From time to time an innovative technology appears and champions of this new (typically private equity-fuelled) concept eventually announce that this new ‘thing’ is going to ‘fix’ ticketing.
That an industry that already globally serves artists, attractions, sport franchises and leagues, theme parks, zoos, museums, cinemas, exhibitions, and conferences, and 99.9% of the time delivers, can apparently be improved by the technical adoption and integration of this new thing.
That all client and/or consumer service frustrations will be eased or eradicated.
That ticketing processes will operate more efficiently, with improved transparency for all stakeholders, delivering lower costs, and with the benefit of increased fairness.
And what is the name of this transformative technology.
Blockchain.
And, then more recently NFTs
And now it’s all about AI.
Blockchain & NFTs
The rationale for the utilisation of blockchain within ticketing was that because of its decentralised database structure, it would disrupt the pre-existing system architectures and enable a positive and transformative force within the industry i.e. strengthening insight and control for artists and increasing transparency of pricing for consumers.
Whilst also making a margin for the blockchain evangelists.
And despite any objections that the pre-existing industry operators may have.
Whereas blockchain advocates believed that the established platforms would easily and willingly migrate from their pre-existing centralised databases to become entities with distributed ledgers or be replaced by the new ‘superior’ blockchain ticketing solutions.
With the main stated operational advantage for using blockchain being that it enables Rights Owners to keep track of ‘immutable, transferrable, and verifiable’ tickets following any initial sale, as well as subsequent resales and/or transfers with the utilisation of ‘smart contracts’ detailing individual ticketing terms and conditions.
The blockchain database of all transactions, with identification of each ticket price, ticket service fees, ticket transaction limit, ticket exchange and/or forwarding rules etc., it was claimed eliminated the possibility of unauthorised resale, uncontrolled price gouging, and/or fraudulent transactions.
Which assumed that these practises were universally condemned by the entire ticketing industry.
Non-Fungible Tokens / NFTs built further on the apparently self-evident blockchain advantages by also providing additional revenue streams in the form of incremental fees for tickets as ‘digital collectibles’ i.e. a special kind of cryptoasset.
The industry response was ‘incremental revenues, what is not to like?’ Except that an insufficient number of ticket-buyers showed any interest.
The Innovator’s Dilemma*
(*With apologies to Clayton M. Christensen)
Leaving aside the high moral tone of many blockchain advocates, these tech-evangelists overstated the positive disruptive impact for ticketing, in part due to drinking their own Kool-Aid and their crypto-currency holdings.
Turned out that blockchain was technically a poor database solution, in that it is a slower processor of data, requires a higher level of computer storage and infrastructure, and does not offer user support, etc.
It does however have one dimension in which it is radically different, it is ‘decentralised.’ i.e. no single entity controls it.
In ticketing terms, this meant that blockchain was potentially not beholding to the despised and distrusted major retail agencies with their client-determined retail pricing and restrictive practises – ‘all ticket sales are final’, or ‘no refund or exchange’.
So, the concept of blockchain appealed to tech entrepreneurs who allied themselves with some artists or sport stars and attempted to disintermediate the various live entertainment conglom’s and their ticketing divisions, who they perceived as withholding data whilst extracting revenues from their audience.
Blockchain was therefore presented as a liberating force, which would enable the new to sweep aside the incumbents with their onerous and self-serving contractual arrangements and legacy platforms, and liberate artists and consumers to a new more equitable future.
It’s easy to be cynical after the fact, but we all know how that ended.
Digitisation
As noted by others, the digitalisation of ticketing, which was accelerated by the contactless requirements of the COVID pandemic, now incorporates the encrypted verification of personal identity, biometrics, and wallets as well as the authentication of travel or event ticketing at point-of-entry.
Secure, digital ticketing via mobile devices has become the normalised expectation of service delivery – but very few operators have elected to also incorporate any public blockchain decentralised database construction.
Rather, the digital ticketing process typically enables API distribution of inventory across multiple retail and marketing partners, with all data points including end-consumer, transactional values, sale, resale and/or exchange available to the central event manifest.
Whilst the ticket transactions may occur with a 3rd Party agency or outlet, the secure digital ticket can be distributed to the correct consumer within a single event Rights Owner fully branded mobile app.
The digital ticket can also be activated by the timing of the event, proximity to premises or by discrete automated notifications to individual VIPs or Hospitality suite holders.
Further the digital ticket can also include event maps, venue layouts, parking, security messaging, merchandise, and/or F&B up-sale information.
Actual event attendee data, as opposed to the initial ticket booker (converting the unknown recipients of the 2, 4, or 6 tickets per transaction ,into known users) is finally available – increasing audience data insight whilst aiding event licensing and operational oversight.
By transitioning to digital ticketing, the event Rights Owners and their ticketing service providers are increasing ticket security, KYC insight and control over the ticket inventory, enabling authorised resale and/or exchange, whilst reducing ticket fraud.
And in the main without adding the complication of blockchain, or NFTs.
The impact of AI
However, AI is already significantly transforming event ticketing, not just by removing headcount (Ticketmaster Cuts 8% Of Staff, 350 Employees Primarily In Engineering, Product & Design, Andy Gensler, 6th May 2026 – https://news.pollstar.com/2026/05/06/ticketmaster-cuts-8-of-staff-350-employees-primarily-in-engineering-product-design/), but by also enhancing various aspects of the ticketing process.
Firstly, AI automates routine tasks, for example, reducing the workload for event creators on ticketing platforms especially for reserved seating or other complicated event manifests, easing the assembly and editing of event content, and accelerating the process of getting events on-sale.
AI can continuously monitor event purchase flow data, analyse marketing campaign effectiveness, and enable multiple ‘personalised’ event offers and up-sales.
AI also enables real-time adjustments to ticket prices based on demand and buyer behaviour, ensuring prices reflect actual and not assumed market conditions.
AI systems can also identify and thus block or prevent fraudulent ticket transactions, enhancing event security for both organizers and genuine ticket-buyers.
AI-driven chatbots can provide instant written or verbal responses to common inquiries, with each resolution adding to the AI knowledge set, improving customer services.
And the utilisation of AI within ticketing is only just starting.
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In summary, ticketing continues to evolve. Invisibly and relentlessly, changing not at all, and then overnight. Whether broken, unfair, barely working or disrupted, it’s still the most dynamically interesting confluence of commerce and tech.
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And in other news ….thanks to French colleagues at Tix.media (https://tix.media/) for their extensive review and commentary (IA, bots et boom du secondaire : Tim Chambers démonte la nouvelle économie du billet – https://tix.media/2026/05/22/ia-bots-et-boom-du-secondaire-tim-chambers-demonte-la-nouvelle-economie-du-billet/) of an earlier scribble – Rise and Fall? … And in other news (15.05.26) (https://tjchambers.blog/2026/05/16/rise-and-fall-and-in-other-news-15-05-26/).
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And lastly, I was amused to note whilst recently visiting the BFI IMAX that admission to a film screening merely required the mobile phone reveal a static barcode (PDF), but more importantly confirmation of the row/seat number, as none of the ‘ticket check’ staff were equipped with a scanner. A reminder of simpler times.
Until the next time.
TJ_Chambers 