In an article published by the United Nation's department of Economics and Social affairs, accessibility is outlined as an exceptional business opportunity and a central element of any responsible and sustainable development policy. I find this to be true not only for the tourism industry to which the article addressed, but also the event industry.

The event industry thrives on creating access to Stars, Role Models, Experiences, Information, dreams and places. Be it a live football match, a music concert, a fundraiser, an exhibition, a bootcamp, a business conference or a movie premiere, people are enabled to participate in and enjoy experiences through events. By promoting accessibility, event organisers have harnessed this business opportunity through ticket sales.

Sadly, over the years, with fake ticket sales, scalping of tickets and complicated check-in methods, the core on which the event industry thrives has been threatened.

The grave effects of these anomalies was experienced first-hand in the just concluded UEFA champion league games. On the night of the Champions League finals, the game was delayed by over thirty minutes due to access issues which in later reports, was discovered that over 2,000 people were identified as having fake tickets.

Can such situations be checked?

Here's where blockchain ticketing and NFT ticketing platforms like Nftikets come in.

What is Blockchain Ticketing?

From finance, health, supply chain management to art, media and cybersecurity, blockchain technology has infiltrated industries with positive impact and the event industry is certainly not left out. Recent years have seen more event organisers and organisations adopting blockchain ticketing for their events.

Blockchain and NFTs

Blockchain technology is a system of digitally distributed, decentralised, public ledgers that store transaction records and exist across a network of computers.With blockchain technology, information is recorded in such a way that makes it very difficult or impossible to change, alter or duplicate.

On the other hand, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are unique digital identifiers that represent unique assets and are held on a blockchain. They act as verifiable proof of ownership and authenticity and can only have one owner at a time.

Therefore, Blockchain ticketing is the process of producing (minting) tickets as digital assets that record access credentials to an event on a blockchain, and that cannot be changed or altered.

NFTs and ticketing

Issuing tickets as NFTs would solve many of the pressing issues that currently plague the event industry. As it stands, a handful of big-name organisations have tested NFT ticketing for their events.

The National Football League (NFL) unveiled a polygon-based, NFT marketplace in November 2021 and has distributed around 250,000 NFT tickets for various playoff games since then.

What problems do NFT ticketing Solve?

For years, little has changed about the way that tickets are issued and authenticated, and as discussed earlier, this has meant that there has also been minimal change in the practice of scalping, duplicating and counterfeiting of tickets for popular events and impeding access to such events..

It is important to understand that NFT ticketing can address significant challenges in the event industry in these ways:

• Cheaper and faster production

When compared to traditional methods of ticketing such as printing and the use of digital QR codes, the cost of minting and selling tickets is potentially way cheaper and faster.

On Nftikets, which is a blockchain ticketing platform, creating tickets for your event takes less than five minutes, irrespective of the quantity and requires no special skill to accomplish.

• Market control

In 2020, the global secondary ticket market was estimated at over $5bn and. These incomes go directly to the ticket scalpers who may end up making for more profits from ticket sales than the events' organisers or artists, not to mention the fans that either buy valid tickets at outrageously high amounts or get scammed.

Thanks to blockchain technology, NFTs can be used to guarantee the authenticity of tickets and prevent scalping, and smart contracts (A smart contract is basically, an agreement between two or more parties, recorded as computer self-executing codes on the blockchain), with which certain conditions like price caps on tickets can be fixed, could be used to regulated secondary ticket markets.

As an event organiser, you can choose whether or not to allow resale of your event's tickets and determine the conditions for resale such as royalty splits and resale prices, should you decide to activate resale. You're completely in control of the secondary market

Nftikets has been integrated with tools that allows you to set these conditions while you're creating your ticket, so you don't have to worry about the technicalities involved.

• Additional utility for ticket owners

Because blockchain is an open ledger, it is possible for organisations and artists to use the technology to recognise and reward attendance and loyalty from their fans or NFT ticket holders' with built-in digital collectables, access passes, discounts and much more.

With NFT tickets true ownership and provenance of tickets is possible and can serve as proof-of-attendance for your ticket holders' bragging rights.

Conclusion

If you are just hearing about the concept of NFT ticketing for the first time through this article, it might seem too good to be true or probably quite complex to implement.

The good news is NFT ticketing platforms are already beginning to herald ease in blockchain implementation to event ticketing.

At Nftikets we believe that blockchain technology secures the future of the event ticketing by giving back control to organisers and attendees alike.
People can participate in and enjoy experiences of greater value with NFT tickets.

Nftikets is built as a ticketing technology software solution that allows you as an event organiser create and share your event's experience with the world. It allows for free minting of events' tickets on the blockchain and provides a marketplace where your guests can buy tickets fairly and more easily with borderless payment options.
Nftikets can also be integrated to your event's website so that your tickets can be bought directly without having to redirect fans to the ticketing platform, thereby creating a better experience for end-users.