JULY/AUGUST | SECTOR FOCUS
THE CHAIN
Marc Mazzariol, vice president of product at
SecuTix has been piloting blockchain technology
with several clients, including Switzerland’s Paleo
festival,
TICKETING
With ticketing becoming a mainstay in the consumer news
cycle, we examine the innovations driving change
Blockchain: Pros
1. Combating ticket fraud and inflated prices. Far
and away the biggest benefit of blockchain is that
it can solve the issues of coun terfeit tickets and
extortionate resale prices. At the heart of the
blockchain is the smart contract, to which we
can add constraints on ticket transactions such
as setting a maximum sale price or preventing
ticket resales but allowing returns.
2. Knowing your attendees. It’s not uncommon
to hear of only 20-30 per cent of tickets being
traceable. With blockchain, every single ticket is
traceable. An event organiser will always know
which e-wallet owns a ticket and has the power
to cancel that ticket or contact the owner.
3. Restructure of the secondary ticketing market. I
think the secondary market will always exist, but
in a restructured format to sell unsold tickets.
Currently the secondary ticketing market is
working in silos – each platform has its own
inventory and there is no link between them.
But because the blockchain is a democratic
technology and accessible to everyone we could
connect the inventory up. I expect resistance
from the secondary market to this because their
margins would disappear.
Blockchain: Cons
1. Data Privacy. When you store something on the
blockchain it’s there forever, which in the age of
GDPR and data privacy is causing uncertainty
about the best way to store customer data. We
comply with GDPR as we don’t store customer
information in the blockchain. It could be said
that storing data outside the blockchain goes
against its principles, but the issue is something
the blockchain community must solve.
2. Legal Responsibility. If you purchase a ticket
but don’t receive it because there is a bug in
the blockchain, who is responsible for that?
Currently there is no legal framework that
defines responsibility. For the ticketing industry
to make full use of blockchain’s potential we need
legal clarification.
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