by Adriana Hamacher

OP/ED - If techno-predictions for 2010 are to be believed, it’s to be the year of the digital economy and the demand for mobile transactions – in purchasing, ticketing and banking – is going to be huge. As proof of the increasing demand, e-Bay reported its users bought more than 1.5 million items via their mobile phones over the Christmas holiday - more than ever before.

Mobile ticketing was was first used successfully in the UK for a Guns 'n' Roses gig last year. See the full report here. Juniper Research recently forecast that 400 million would be using mobile tickets by 2013. For an explanation of how the system works, click here.

So is the events ticket industry, geared up for this? Not enough it seems, and Europe is lagging behind the US.

As yet, there isn’t a dedicated App for buying a ticket for an event on your mobile, although in the US, Fandango has just announced an Android (TM) platform for film. The Fandango Movies, Times & Tickets app enables fans to find films and screening times, watch trailers, locate cinemas, view fan ratings and buy ticket in a flash. But it’s presently only available for cinemas and, in any case, only available in the US.

Traditional methods yield mixed results.  My Blackberry took a dislike to several of the ticketing agents I tried and said they didn’t have a “servers certificate”. Off course, you can always just phone.

If you’ve successfully bought a ticket (bit easier on an iphone), gaining access to an event via a barcode sent to your mobile, is gaining popularity but it can also be a stressful experience, potential for scamming aside.

A leader in the field is Etickets. CEO Matt McNeill outlines the problems with barcodes:

“There are two problems Firstly the wholesale cost of an mms is 25 pence, it’s an expensive way of delivering things. Secondly interoperability: you need to know what handset the customer has and how to repurpose your barcode to the device. So it’s a tech nightmare and that’s before you have the customer education to make sure they have their phone open at the gate.”

McNeill’s answer to the problem is near field ID chips in phones. This, however, is a medium rather than short term solution.

But an interesting new service, coming out of America, is Twicketer. Currently in beta testing, it’s a mobile ticketing service that lets anyone schedule events and then sell tickets - afterward providing an electronic ticket displayed on a mobile phone as proof of purchase.

A link to the e-ticket is sent via text message to the buyer's phone, which appears on its web browser to be shown at the gate. Tapping the e-ticket while it's on the phone's screen validates it with Twicketer's service.

Twicketer charges a 99 cent service fee per mobile ticket and you need a smart phone.

According to A-Sun Truth, Twicketer's founder:

"You don't need any scanning hardware at the venue or anything like that. There are no barcodes and no confusion. Our mobile tickets can be personalized, include sponsoring information, and these tickets are almost impossible to counterfeit. We aren't Ticketmaster, we are just a small company using innovative technology ahead of a trend."

For information about other companies offering mobile ticketing, see our video selection: 

TicketBiscuit

 Mobiqa

Neomedia