A new authentication platform wants to introduce airline-style check-ins to concert venues in a bid to beat scalping and fake tickets.
Authenticket, launched by Canada-based Fair Ticket Solutions, uses GPS and beacon technology to link purchasers and their legally-bought tickets to scanners as they enter the arena.
Alan Gelfand, founder and chief executive of Fair Ticket Solutions, said Authenticket plugs into any primary ticketing company and offers a solution to a number of problems currently affecting the industry.
“Once plugged in, we set up an invisible gate at the venue that nobody can get through until they check in,” Gelfand told Pollstar.
“As soon as they tap their phone or scan their credit card at a kiosk [provided by Fair Ticket Solutions], we open up the invisible gate and tell the scanners that their ticket is good to be scanned.
“It’s almost identical to the airline industry where they won’t let you on their plane until you have proven it’s you whom the ticket was purchased for.”
Gelfand said Authenticket can help to rebuild trust between ticket buyers and the ticketing industry.
He also said it can play a role in helping artists and venues to select and enforce the use of a single secondary ticketing operator.
“Because the authorised exchange is connected to the primary seller, who are the only ones that can transfer the new attendees’ identification (i.e. credit card or email) to us, we know what is going to be used to check in,” Gelfand told Pollstar.
“What’s important about that is no tickets can be transferred or sold without the primary ticketing companies’ permission, thereby eliminating fraud. The artists have the right to ‘cap’ ticket re-sale prices, for example by choosing Twickets as reseller. Now the Bots won’t buy Adele tickets because they can only resell them on Twickets where they won’t make a profit.
“If they bought them and tried to sell them on an unauthorised site, the new purchaser would not be able to check in because the venue doesn’t know about them. They would not get the check-in notification nor would they have the credit card used to purchase the tickets originally from the primary market.”
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