Blockchain Ticketing: The recent final of the Champions League tournament was one of the most prestigious football events in the world. However, it was hit by a massive ticketing scandal. It could have been prevented, says Asaf Faybisho,
30,000 to 40,000 people tried to enter the Stade de France in the final event of the Champions League. It was the location of a match between Real Madrid of Spain and English club Liverpool. Fans came up with fake/unconfirmed tickets. This caused chaos on the streets of Paris. Police intervention was required and the match was delayed by about an hour.
The Champions League is an elite club level competition. The top sixteen football clubs from across Europe play against each other to earn the right to be champions. The tournament first came into existence in 1955. It has since been recognized as the premier club-level soccer tournament in the world, attracting millions of spectators annually.
However, this year’s final saw huge fraud at the industrial level. French Interior Minister Gerald Darminin said the embarrassing spectacle was a direct result of poor ticket filtration practices maintained by the Stade de France and the French Football Federation. He highlighted: “70% of the tickets arriving at the Stade de France were counterfeit. Fifteen percent of the counterfeit tickets were also after the first filtering … More than 2,600 tickets were confirmed by UEFA as non-validated tickets , even if they have gone through filtering before.
Blockchain ticketing could have stopped the whole fuss
Right off the bat, it should be noted that blockchain technology employs a technical concept known as a “smart contract”. Simply put, these digital contracts help facilitate a seamless transition between buyers and sellers while maintaining a high level of data accountability and traceability.
To elaborate, when tickets are sold using a blockchain system, ticket sellers can easily verify the identity of their buyers and vice versa. In addition, each individual ticket can be linked directly to a real person. Promoters and ticketing platforms are given the ability to establish certain resale restrictions to ensure a fairer, more secure marketplace for all.
As far as the security side of things is concerned, each ticket is assigned with a unique, immutable and verifiable transaction on the blockchain or represented using a non-fungible token (NFT). As a result, each individual ticket/NFT is linked to a real person. This completely eliminates the possibility of pretending to own a ticket to an event they haven’t actually signed up for. This is because a record of each associated transaction is available on the underlying decentralized ledger.
So, it stands to reason that if such a ticketing system was implemented during this year’s Champions League final, the above fake ticket scam could have been avoided quite easily.
Here are some notable projects that are developing blockchain ticketing solutions:
sharing
ShareRing is a user-centric blockchain platform that allows the issuance, storage, verification and sharing of digital data (be it tickets, personal information, documents, etc.) in a highly seamless, streamlined fashion.
The platform offers a suite of ‘Access Solutions’ that enable users to gain access to various locations, buildings and events in a convenient, secure and efficient manner using their personal Sharing ID. All while allowing them to maintain complete control over their sensitive information.
To elaborate, trust is established between all involved parties through the use of a decentralized ledger which helps to provide a high level of transparency around the authenticity of each document.
The platform is seeking to eliminate the need for any physical document, improve manual operating procedures, and allow contactless digital transactions.
Courage
GUTS is a blockchain platform primarily designed to promote the concept of “honest ticketing”. This can help eliminate secondary market prices where resale tickets are often sold at exorbitant rates. This offering helps in tackling the wide-ranging issues related to ticketing fraud. Thanks to its innovative operational design, it allows users to maintain total control and insight of their data throughout the entirety of an incident cycle.
The native application of GUTS registers all tickets that are sold through it on an immutable ledger, linking them directly to their rightful owners and making fraud impossible. Furthermore, in addition to the creation and verification of tickets of any kind, GUTS also facilitates legitimate ticket resale, allowing fans to resell them in controlled secondary markets.
bam
BAM is a tamper-proof digital NFT ticketing solution that is secured through the use of an encrypted blockchain network. The platform helps eliminate the need for black markets, while allowing users to maximize their revenue from secondary trading. To elaborate, BAM gives users complete control over their transactions which may originate from any associated primary or secondary market.
The project comes with a well-developed ecosystem that controls all sales along with a wallet app that manages users’ tickets. BAM’s Affiliate Marketplace allows for seamless buying and selling of NFT tickets and e-tickets. All this while giving customers the ability to create event microsites, widgets, etc. Not only that, the Marketplace can be used for concert/event memorabilia shopping as well as for other onsite purchases like beverages, food, etc. ,
get protocol
Like many of its contemporaries above, the GET protocol helps in issuing tickets on a global scale. The platform is designed to distribute tickets for any event in the form of Digital Collectibles (NFTs). As a result, it is fairly easy for all involved parties to immediately obtain clear, verifiable data relating to each purchase.
The GET protocol provides a complete ticketing infrastructure with blockchain and NFT integration that has been validated by users around the world. Plus, its digital architecture allows customers to bring user-friendly scale-free ticketing to local markets under their own branding. At press time, the project has a footprint in over 100 countries and has helped over 400 artists.
Blockchain Ticketing: Conclusion
As the world switches to blockchain ticketing, nuisances like this year’s Champions League final are expected to be a thing of the past.
About the Author
Asaf Fybish is a blockchain enthusiast and early adopter. He owns and operates an unconventional public relations agency, Guerrillabuzz. He has been consulting and investing in various crypto startups since 2017. Before getting into crypto, he had dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player, but it clearly didn’t work out. Asaf holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems.
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