One of the more exciting elements of attending sporting events and concerts prior to the mid-2010’s was the actual ticket itself. The ticket represented a valuable token to a joyful event. Everyone remembers the entire process: from procuring this voucher, to holding onto it tightly in a safe place, and even memorializing the ticket as a collectible item. Handing physical tickets to a client or friend provided a thrill. If you were responsible for safeguarding the group’s ticket, you needed to protect them with your life. And once the event was over, the ticket represented a core memory that some would frame, put in a collectible book, or even sell the used ticket stub for value. The nostalgia of physical tickets is something that many will never forget.
Fast forward to present date where physical tickets basically represent an extinct fossil and have been replaced exclusively by virtual passes that are stored within event-goer’s smart phones. There are certainly benefits to ease of entry with linking the virtual tickets to a specific account, but the value of any ticket ‘stub’ has decreased significantly as the barcode basically disappears after the event (not to mention the lost nostalgia). 
In light of the mobile revolution, in 2017, the Miami Heat became the first team to move exclusively to digital barcode tickets – replacing paper tickets entirely. When significant changes occur, there is typically an opportunity to capitalize. And that is exactly the case with event ticketing and its intersection with blockchain.
To that end, since 2021, sports leagues and concert hosts have experimented with the next step in the process that adds inherent value to the digital barcodes: tickets as non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”, which are a representation of a unique asset stored on the blockchain). Just as the physical tickets – and the post-event stubs – represented a scarce product of value, tickets as NFTs create verifiable digital scarcity and ownership. Event tickets as NFTs guarantee that the ticket is unique and cannot be reproduced. This creates value, NFTs on a blockchain as opposed to a simple barcode – and eliminates fraud. Beyond being a valuable collectible, the unique NFTs could be applied to post event utilities or exclusive offers.
To take it a step further, blockchain and digital asset technologies could create more transparent costs in the resale process. That is, the transactions are verifiable on the blockchain in perpetuity. The current resale system requires multiple accounts when purchasing from a secondary or tertiary sales platform and sometimes unreliable intermediaries (i.e. need to look no further than TicketMaster and how system flaws were exposed in 2022 through the Taylor Swift sales debacle). NFT ticketing creates decentralization. Scalability and security would also be optimized through a pure NFT blockchain with encouraged collaboration, as well as increased transparency (Layer 2 solutions could provide for more cost effective ticket transaction processing).
In a variety of ways, NFTs mark a new and revolutionary way to capitalize on an untapped market. Venues, leagues, and event organizers have a big opportunity with bridging the cap from digital tickets to NFT-based tickets – and some have already started to test the waters such as VeeCon by Gary Vaynerchuk, the NBA, NFL, and even startups such as TokenProof.
Our organization, Layer 1, will be keeping a keen eye on this area, whose mission is to create a global stage for incubating and promoting the best blockchain ideas.
Post Date: November 10, 2023