SecuTix and Paléo Festival Nyon have hailed blockchain as a valuable tool in combatting fraudulent ticket sales following a pilot project.
SecuTix, a provider of a SaaS ticketing and audience management solution, and its long-standing partner Paléo Festival Nyon, the largest open-air festival in Switzerland, conducted a project to test the distribution and activation-transfer process of tickets using a mobile app based on blockchain.
The results were deemed a success in regulating ticket resales and protecting consumers
The pilot project was conducted in real-life conditions between July 18-23 during the 2017 festival.
SecuTix supplied the target group with a mobile app comprising a ‘secure wallet’ connected to blockchain and linked to the access-control software.
The mobile app allowed this first group of primary users (stand managers) to claim a quota of tickets, which could be distributed to users (stand employees) before entering the festival grounds on specific days and at specific times.
Each ticket transfer created a unique transaction ID that was posted to the blockchain repository. Once the ID of the ticket owner was recorded in the user’s wallet, the user simply had to present his or her smartphone at the ticket gate.
The mobile app itself generated a ticket in the form of a tamper-proof barcode several moments before being used to gain entry. Every stage in the life cycle of the ticket (issue, transfer, receipt and activation) was displayed in a dashboard giving a complete picture of the current status of each ticket.
This meant that more than 200 private stand managers and 2,420 employees had the benefit of using an entry ticket controlled by blockchain, which added up to nearly 10,000 entry tickets issued during the six days of the festival.
“This innovative technology is a tool that works directly for the good of our festival audience. Blockchain is a technology with great potential in terms of implementing new access controls to offer our spectators better protection,” said David Franklin, ticketing manager at Paléo Festival.
“From the users’ point of view, the results are equally satisfying. We have succeeded in proving that transferring a ticket is as easy as sending an SMS.”
Frédéric Longatte, chief executive at SecuTix said: “SecuTix is going back to its roots by offering a solution to the challenges which have dogged the industry since time immemorial: fraud and safety at large public events. As well as ratifying a number of technical issues, this pilot project conducted with Paléo has allowed us to test the end-to-end e-ticket, which will inevitably have a profound impact on B2C practices.”
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