May 09, 2012Starting in June, concert goers at two Baltimore music venues will have the option of purchasing reusable RFID-enabled wristbands instead of tickets. The system enables concert promoters to validate tickets electronically using a Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled phone—Google's Samsung Galaxy Nexus—and an application loaded onto the phone that accesses a cloud-based server, on which is stored information regarding the tickets.
The service is being marketed by MissionTix, a Baltimore ticketing service that is employing NFC wristbands, the codeREADr application and hosted back-end software provided by Boston media content company Skycore. Although NFC-enabled ticketing for concerts and festivals is not a new concept, MissionTix' version features a reusable silicon wristband that a consumer could load and reload with tickets for participating venues. Therefore, individuals attending concerts at one location could have the tickets validated there, and then use the same wristbands at another place and time. MissionTix envisions the solution being utilized not only for concerts, but eventually by merchants, enabling users to load a prepaid account and use the wristband to pay for purchases.
Initially, the wristbands will be used for concerts at two Baltimore-area sites: the Recher Theatre and the Ottobar. The wristbands can be ordered online, directly from MissionTix, as the tickets are being purchased, or consumers can buy them at the Sound Garden, a record store also located in Baltimore.
For several years, both Skycore and MissionTix had been working in parallel to introduce NFC ticketing. Skycore, established in 2003, provides global content with a focus on multimedia and transactional messaging. The company offers content for ticketing, including QR codes that could be scanned as ticket holders arrived at a site. However, concert promoters sought ways in which to validate the tickets, which required a connection to a server on which ticket ID numbers were stored. The firm began looking into NFC RFID technology, says Rich Eicher Sr., Skycore's president, in order to determine how such technology could enable quick transactions between ticket holders and staff members stationed at the gates of concerts and other events.
Skycore developed the NFC-enabled wristbands, as well as the codeREADr app (which is available on the Google Play Web site) and the back-end codeREADr software (which it hosts on a server accessible via the Internet). The cost of the codeREADr service ranges from $9.99 per month for use on a single device to $599 when installed on 100 phones. At higher volumes, the monthly pricing is less than $5.99 per unit.
An individual can visit MissionTix' Web site and use a credit or debit card to buy a concert ticket from a participating promoter or venue. Once the ticket is purchased, he or she can then buy the MissionTix wristband, which contains an embedded NXP Semiconductors Mifare NFC chip. Upon receiving the wristband in the mail, the individual can access the MissionTix Web site and input the wristband's ID number, to be linked with his or her own ID, as well as the ticket purchase. That data is then forwarded to the codeREADr cloud-based server.
If someone purchases several tickets simultaneously for friends and family, the same quantity of wristbands can be mailed to that person, who can then distribute them to the other individuals, who would link their own IDs with the purchasing record. The wristbands can be purchased for less than $5 apiece, Loverde says, though the exact price has yet to be determined.
Instead of throwing the wristband away at the end of the concert, the individual can utilize it for other concerts as well, or use it to make purchases at participating merchants, such as refreshment stands or gift shops at a concert. In this way, he or she would not need to carry cash or credit cards, but simply make payments via the wristband.
Initially, Loverde reports, MissionTix plans to provide approximately 1,000 wristbands to concert goers. "That will give us time to see the system in operation," he says, and determine customers' demand for the technology.
The solution could also be used at other venues, Eicher notes, such as at nightclubs, where visitors would be able to prepay for admittance, preload the wristband for purchases, and then enter the club without carrying credit cards or cash. The companies are presently targeting venues in the vicinity of Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
In the future, Eicher says, the system could be used with concert goers' own NFC-enabled phones. The ticket ID could be stored on a phone's NFC chip, and a user would simply tap the phone against that of the event staff at the concert gate.
