Admission Tickets as Text Messages 244
lee1 writes to tell us that InfoWorld is reporting that Smartmachine and their partner Skidata have developed a new way to allow customers to purchase and receive tickets to events. The new ticketing system allows users to "have a ticket sent to their mobile phone via SMS (Short Message Service) in the form of a 2D (two-dimensional) bar code. At the gate, they slide their mobile phone display showing the bar code by a bar code reader." The new technology also claims to help combat the counterfeit, pilferage, and repeat use that can be such a problem for paper tickets.
Like public transport in finland (Score:5, Interesting)
Old news in Korea (Score:5, Interesting)
It makes a lot of sense. It's convenient to order the tickets, also via cell phone, and then you don't have to wait in line. And everyone there has a cell phone.
Funfact: In South Korea when you buy a movie ticket, you can buy a particular seat, like at a sports game.
Re:What? (Score:3, Interesting)
Presumably, the "tickets" are generated uniquely by some mechanism that's "difficult" to hack. And once you go through the turnstile, your "ticket" is scanned and the database to which the scanner is connected marks it as used. This is no different from paper tickets with barcodes that are scanned at the gate.
-a
This was tried in India for a Cricket match (Score:3, Interesting)
FTA:
The tickets would be delivered directly to their mobile phones. At the venue, they only need to place their phones on the sensor installed at the gates for entering the stadium. Spice Telecom and Karnataka State Cricket Association, after their "successful" and ongoing joint venture of Future Strokes, have again come together to launch the Mobile Ticketing in association with ConvergeLabs, a Spice Telecom release said.
Re:Like public transport in finland (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And they'll pass the cost savings on to... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Combat counterfeit? (Score:3, Interesting)
What they really need... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Plan B (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Plan B (Score:3, Interesting)
The barcodes apear to be randomly generated and of sufficient length to stop anyone from brute force hacking when the validation is checked by a person standing with a PDA pressing the button on each read.
Before they started this system I lost my tickets. They will issue vouchers for season ticket holders in this event, and aparently they recorded the numbers of all the stubs collected after the event. I was told if my tickets came through I would get a bill for the duplicates.
The bar codes were on the tickets before the system was in place. What puzzled me was that it was on the main ticket, and not the stub that was collected. Now that they scan on entry they no longer collect the stubs.
It seems like the cell phone and barcodes is only a small step from the above, which has been tested and worked very will at events with attendance of nearly 250k.
Re:Old news in Korea (Score:3, Interesting)
For the record, in the UK it depends on the cinema. My local one only rarely assigns seating (RotS had assigned seats, I can't think of anything else that did) and most of the time I have been there only about 20% of seats have been taken when I've arrived about ten minutes late (and missed the ads, and some of the trailers).
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)