The NFT industry is moving beyond the expensive JPEG and knocking on the door of the ticketing industry in dire need of reform.
The NFT market has been in poor health since the collapse of Terra and Celsius in late spring/early summer of last year. According to DappRadar, monthly volume dropped from nearly $3.3 billion in May to just over $1 billion in June. After the FTX crash, NFT prices fell another 15% in a single day. The contagion from the exchange collapse caused widespread panic regarding all blockchain-based products, including cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
However, the market crash of 2022 has accelerated the trends that were already taking place. Investors and traders are less convinced by fast profits and are looking for NFTs with more utility. One use case that is quietly entering the mainstream is the ticketing industry.
Last year, British electronic trio Clean Bandit announced they were using NFTs as tickets for their own UK tour. The initiative is part of the SeatLab Sounds University Freshers Tour, a series of events powered by SeatLabNFT, an NFT ticketing provider. The platform enables fans to purchase NFT tickets that can be saved, stored and sold for SeatLabNFT’s own crypto coin, $SEAT.
Last year, Kevin Hart’s “Confessions of the Heart” NFT collection also included a package that gave certain holders access to some of his shows. DeFy Tickets, another blockchain ticketing platform, partnered with Lupe Fiasco and Gucci Mane for summer shows last year.
From Paper to Phone to NFT
The NFT takeover of the ticketing industry will be the second revolution of its kind in this century. In 2000, there was no other option than to have your ticket shipped to your address or collected at the venue. As broadband and email services became a staple, vendors began offering email tickets for you to print at home. As smartphones took over, the need for printers disappeared, and a QR quickly became the standard way to enter the live event of your choice.
This vast market presents ample opportunities for NFT stamps to make inroads. The global events industry was worth $1.4 trillion in 2019 and is expected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2028.
While QR codes can put your tickets straight in your pocket, NFTs can add another layer of benefits for both vendors and fans. With its inherent transparency, blockchain is a ready-made solution for event organizers who want an immutable public record of who purchased a ticket.
NFTs can also turn stamps into more three-dimensional products. Owners may be gifted special digital collections such as set lists or exclusive access to new songs or videos. Holders of these tickets can take advantage of ticket-holder-only experiences, including after-parties or invites to exclusive virtual events. In this regard, your NFT becomes akin to membership in a fan club.
Like other NFTs, tickets in this new era can also be generative PFP (Profile Picture) NFTs for you to share and flaunt on social media. Manage to grab tickets to the in-demand festival? Well, in the future, there may be more than one way to brag about it. don’t judge; You want too.
NFT tickets could eliminate ticket touting
NFTs as a ticket have been a long-standing topic since the asset class first became popular in 2020. However, the events sector is only now waking up to its potential to solve an old problem. Brokers and scalps have long presented a headache for the industry, driven by price-fixing on the secondary market, to the dismay of hardcore fans.
NFT stamps can be controlled “by smart contracts to enable things like royalty splits on secondary resale, opening up a new revenue stream for sellers, and preventing uncontrolled price gouging,” says Charlie Gardiner. it is said. Content Manager at SeatLabNFT, a Web2 ticketing solution that recently started using non-fungible tokens. “We are also providing organizers with unmatched data about their customers and their ticketing ecosystem, thanks to the transparent nature of blockchain technology.”
ThetaPass, a form of NFT-based tickets from Theta Network, applies the same principles to online content. According to Wes Levitt, their head of strategy, their ticketing solution is easily transferable and impossible to counterfeit. (It’s estimated that about 12% of all event tickets are fake.) “This means fewer users are being taken advantage of with fake tickets, and creators can make their fans more comfortable with events by simply sending a token in their wallet.” or offer content access.”
“It solves the major pain points that ticketing has right now, which are counterfeit tickets and the inability for users to transfer tickets freely among themselves,” he says. Theta has already implemented this solution with the Word Poker Tour and to gain access to Samsung’s Galaxy Store. “We are already seeing it used online at crypto conferences and offline like Thetacon.”
We’re ever, ever, ever… getting fair ticket prices
The adoption of NFT technology is likely to reduce ticketing disputes such as those on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Last year, Ticketmaster’s verified fan program fell flat when — despite its best intentions — scalpers walked away with a significant number of prized tickets.
More than 2,000,000 tickets were sold during the planned presale, and Ticketmaster blamed “a staggering number of bot attacks, as well as fans who did not have invite codes, for unprecedented traffic to the site.” The price in the secondary market later saw a high of $22,000.
These are exactly the kinds of problems NFTs are best equipped to tackle, says Charlie of SeatLabNFT. “The ticketing industry is ready for disruption; Little has changed in the way tickets are distributed over the past decade, and there is clear discontent within the general public as shown recently when tickets for big-name artists went on sale.
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