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The Rise Of Digital Ticketing

Posted in Guides on 13 August 2023

The Rise Of Digital Ticketing

The Rise Of Digital Ticketing

If you’ve been to a music festival or gaming convention recently, you’re sure to have noticed the use of digital ticketing. The completely electronic way of booking gigs and entering venues has taken over the ticketing industry, with eventgoers only needing to remember to bring their phones to gain access to a great variety of different events.

But how has digital ticketing managed to take off so quickly?

We’ve taken a look at the difference between E tickets vs paper tickets to discover how digital ticketing has become the giant of the ticketing world.


The Difference Between E Tickets And Paper Tickets

The difference between E tickets and paper tickets is that E tickets are completely digital whereas paper tickets are purely physical.

E tickets (otherwise known as digital tickets) can only be bought online, with fans having the option to purchase a ticket right up until the day the show starts. Digital tickets come in the form of a scannable QR code or barcode and contain all the information regarding the booking.

Paper tickets for events on the other hand can be purchased online or in person at dedicated ticket booths. When bought online, paper tickets arrive in the post, typically a couple of weeks before the event is due to start. Paper tickets will contain all the event information and are sometimes printed onto paper stocks that cannot be easily replicated at home to prevent fraud.

Mobile Phones With QR Concert Ticket On Screen

Explaining The Rise In Digital Ticketing

More and more ticket vendors are moving towards only providing digital ticketing as an option for music fans and convention visitors to buy. Now if you want to attend a concert or festival, chances are you won’t be even given the option to buy a paper ticket. But what has led to such a dramatic shift to digital?


Digital Ticketing Is More Cost Effective

Let’s start with the most obvious benefit for ticket companies. Cutting out the need for concert ticket paper printing and ticket delivery has greatly reduced the costs for ticket vendors. With digital ticketing, all ticket companies need is an online platform that allows customers to view and buy their tickets.

And sure, running a professional website isn’t exactly cheap. But having a website and also having to print thousands of tickets is even more expensive. What’s more, digital ticketing removes the need to print onto costly special papers to prevent fake tickets from appearing, which helps to cut costs and prevent fraud for events.


Digital Ticketing Is Better For The Environment

In recent years, there has been a great push for companies to become as environmentally friendly as possible. Ticket companies are no exception to this. The removal of concert ticket paper production has cut down on the amount of waste produced by events.

Gone are the days of disposable tickets and wristbands that are removed and binned as soon as the day is done. Gone are the special anti-fraud papers that cannot be as easily recycled. As digital ticketing is completely online, there is no physical waste created.


Digital Ticketing Is More Convenient

9 times out of 10, digital ticketing is more convenient than the paper ticket.

Digital tickets are sent straight to your phone as soon as they are purchased – no more waiting around for the post to arrive. With digital tickets, it’s also a lot easier to change the details of your event booking. Whether you want to change seats or ticket transfer to a friend, this is all simple to do online. Plus, any changes that are made to your booking appear on your ticket straight away.

E tickets are also helpful for events venue staff. The scannable tickets help venues quickly keep track of how many people have entered the event, helping staff to safely manage the crowds.


Digital Ticketing Boosts Marketing Potential

Another benefit for the ticket companies here, with digital ticketing helping to create an effective marketing strategy. When buying an E ticket online, ticket companies now have a copy of your email address as well as your booking details. With this information in hand, ticket vendors know exactly the type of events you are interested in and can send you relevant promotional details.

This way, you’ll never miss out on the next big event and ticket sellers can keep their sales up. It’s a win-win situation.


Paperless Ticketing Cracks Down On Inflated Ticket Prices

How many times have you been stuck in an online ticket queue, only for the event to sell out before you get the opportunity to buy your tickets? Next thing you know, tickets are popping up everywhere but at twice the price!

To combat resellers inflating ticket prices, ticket sites such as Ticketmaster have introduced paperless ticketing for some of their events. Paperless ticketing requires customers to bring a copy of their ID or credit card information to prove that they are the person who bought the tickets. This prevents ticket bots from snapping up all the tickets to resell, as paperless tickets cannot be transferred once bought.


Have Paper Tickets For Events Gone For Good?

Although the success of digital ticketing is pretty widespread, paper tickets for events aren’t completely gone.

Many avid music fans and festival goers like to collect tickets for each of the musicians they have seen. These nostalgia-filled mementos are wonderful keepsakes to remember a fun day out. And paper tickets are certainly cheaper than the costly merch sold by music venues and singers alike.

Unfortunately, digital ticketing has taken away this collector’s mindset as digital tickets are usually deleted after the event is over. But for all the music fans out there who want to keep hold of their concert memories, there are a couple of ways to get your hands on a physical ticket.

Urban Paper Ticket Design Repeated

How To Get Paper Tickets From Ticketmaster

For some Ticketmaster shows, there is still the option to print your own tickets. Ticketmaster will provide you with the option to print at home, instead of sending a copy of your ticket out to you in the post. Although this isn’t the lovely concert ticket paper we used to know and love, home-printed Ticketmaster paper tickets can still provide a nice physical memory to look back on in the days to come.


Print Your Own DIY Concert Ticket Paper Designs

If you aren’t happy with standard home-printed tickets, why not make and print your own designs? The decline of the paper ticket from ticket vendors has led to an increase in paper tickets from the creative market. Now, super fans are making their own ticket designs for each of the concerts and bands they have seen to stick up on their walls or add to their memory boxes.

These DIY concert tickets may not be able to be used at the actual event, but they do still serve as a beautiful token to hold onto.

At Aura Print, we’ve created an entirely dedicated page for event ticket printing. So if you’re thinking about designing your own tickets for awesome merch or simply are not satisfied with digital ticketing, we have everything you could possibly need, all in one place.


Jenna Beastall
by

A self-taught design wizz, when Jenna isn't creating graphics for our website, she's writing about her favourite subject: Design!