Digital tickets in the future

[Leyrulion]

3 minutes ago, Superscally said:

The tech required for that in a field is massive, expensive and could potentially fail. Of course, if it can be done then why not

The point of this whole thread is that at some point that will be cheaper than the current system. 

[Superscally]

1 minute ago, Leyrulion said:

The point of this whole thread is that at some point that will be cheaper than the current system. 

I disagree. 😄 

[incident]

11 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

I reckon they could do it at a pinch with ethernet - use a shielded cat6A and just run 100mbps down it to increase the length - sufficient for tix scan transactions at a gate of say 6-8 per sec. They could run the cable with the water pipes that already permenantly cross the site. May only even need to run them between the gates and the accreditation marquee at each gate then uplink to 4g from there?

Can't see any chance that works without many boosters/switches in the mix. Yes, if you're protecting the cable and don't need high bandwidth then you can go a fair bit bit about the "ideal world" 100m. You can probably even double it - but in this case some of the cables would need to be more than 20 times as long.

Aside from anything else, even if you could get a massively degraded signal at the other end, no credible installer/supplier would be prepared to offer any kind of assurance or guarantee and many would flat out refuse to put their name to the work.

When it eventually happens that the Festival does go fully digital, it'll be some form of Wireless communication between the gates and central command. It wouldn't surprise me if provision for this is built into the new comms contract with Vodafone. Wired is theoretically more stable (though at work we still hit surprisingly regular issues with buildings going down when someone digs in the wrong place), but to do it properly is also way too expensive for temporary infrastructure.

[DeanoL]

Tech is going to get cheaper, secured post is going to get more expensive. Eventually we will reach a tipping point.

[squirrelarmy]

1 hour ago, incident said:

When it eventually happens that the Festival does go fully digital, it'll be some form of Wireless communication between the gates and central command. It wouldn't surprise me if provision for this is built into the new comms contract with Vodafone.

Surely they should have partnered with o2 instead who are now owned by Virgin who are the biggest provider of fibre installs in the country. 

[clarkete]

1 hour ago, Leyrulion said:

The point of this whole thread is that at some point that will be cheaper than the current system. 

That's not what the original post referred to, which was about avoiding any issues. 

31 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Tech is going to get cheaper, secured post is going to get more expensive. Eventually we will reach a tipping point.

Certainly the connectivity is cheaper and has higher throughput, but there's still a unit cost for whatever gear you have at checkpoints and due to the quantity and the kilometers between them it will always have a decent initial cost. 

As for post, the increases aren't particularly high this far are they? 

[BambooShanks]

27 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Eventually we will reach a tipping point.

When we reach a point where a wireless system can be implemented that has a near zero risk of failure, is as secure as physical tickets and  cheap enough to install and maintain to the point where it will save money compared to physical tickets, of course GFL will most likely migrate to that.  

If this was done in partnership with Live Nation or other festivals, then it could be more cost effective as the same equipment can be used across all the festivals.  Until that happens, I don't think we'll be moving to fully digital tickets any time soon

[incident]

6 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

Surely they should have partnered with o2 instead who are now owned by Virgin who are the biggest provider of fibre installs in the country. 

On this sort of scale, one multinational telecoms empire is much the same as any other multinational telecoms empire. They'll have gone with whichever was offering the best deal for what they wanted to achieve. Anecdotally, it feels like O2 have never been interested in festivals much - for example they seem less likely than other networks to install extra capacity. I jumped from Virgin primarily because of the merger and knowing it'd make signal worse at multiple festivals.

[squirrelarmy]

4 minutes ago, incident said:

Anecdotally, it feels like O2 have never been interested in festivals

Probably happy enough with the gig market. Plenty of sponsored venues around. 
 

Imagine getting o2 Priority on Glasto tickets. 

[gfa]

2 hours ago, Superscally said:

But the tech and maintenance of that would probably cost more, not less.

Every other fest manages to do it - the idea glasto can't is absolutely ridiculous!

There's no way it costs 500k a year in maintenance

[clarkete]

1 hour ago, squirrelarmy said:

Probably happy enough with the gig market. Plenty of sponsored venues around. 
 

Imagine getting o2 Priority on Glasto tickets. 

Lebara have a couple of different underground posters atm:- one is that their pieces are cheaper as they don't sponsor expensive venues, the other is that their prices are cheaper as they don't use hollywood stars in their ads.

Dunno how effective

[D-Low]

Probably the only person who prefers paper tickets (although I can see the benefits). Biggest thing I miss post covid is physical tickets for mementos.

It's quite sad that I have a box of old gig tickets and suddenly it's stopped growing 😞

[sime]

6 minutes ago, D-Low said:

Probably the only person who prefers paper tickets (although I can see the benefits). Biggest thing I miss post covid is physical tickets for mementos.

It's quite sad that I have a box of old gig tickets and suddenly it's stopped growing 😞

Although it's not really the same (and I do miss those big printed tickets with the bands typeface or logo on them) too, I print off the digital ticket for gigs and things that matter to me, to use as a memento.

[fullfathom5]

16 minutes ago, D-Low said:

Probably the only person who prefers paper tickets (although I can see the benefits). Biggest thing I miss post covid is physical tickets for mementos.

It's quite sad that I have a box of old gig tickets and suddenly it's stopped growing 😞

With you on that.

[tigger123]

26 minutes ago, D-Low said:

Probably the only person who prefers paper tickets (although I can see the benefits). Biggest thing I miss post covid is physical tickets for mementos.

It's quite sad that I have a box of old gig tickets and suddenly it's stopped growing 😞

100% this, I used to love collecting my gig tickets. Can obviously do the same with festival wristbands even with a dig ticket for a festival but somehow not quite the same as the physical paper ticket 

[Neil]

54 minutes ago, tigger123 said:

100% this, I used to love collecting my gig tickets. Can obviously do the same with festival wristbands even with a dig ticket for a festival but somehow not quite the same as the physical paper ticket 

Still think they'd be wristbands with digital tickets.

[tigger123]

43 minutes ago, Neil said:

Still think they'd be wristbands with digital tickets.

Oh 100%, there def still would be, but still not the same as a paper ticket stub for me (no idea why I feel like that just do!)

[bob323]

thinking a bit further for security, they could even do a small video clip of people saying their name (think like a basic tiktok style interface)

 all this data/ video clips could be stored locally with in the gate area, it could probably stored in a locked down normal phone!

Only changes to the list (ie last minute people added/ removing) and in/out data needs to be sent to central server

all very feasble now. although the mobile data providers would need to make sure of some proper anti jamming system, spread spectrum is cheap tech now if wireless is choosen

(if your reading, seetickets I can help, as contractor in enterprise solutions with in finance)

Edited June 15, 2023 by bob323

[timbrass]

The issue with any tech solution is that if it goes wrong, it can go wrong big time for everyone all at same time. With physical paper and wristbands you can do manual workarounds (for example double wristbanding in 2005 floods) or telling punters whose tickets were misdelivered to pick up a tixket at gate A.  Also you are open to unexpected attacks.... so if I knew there was an Ethernet cable I could cut or a generator I could turn off, I might do so in the hope that everyone would be waved in.  Simple physical solutions are often the best ones. 

[Superscally]

16 hours ago, gfa said:

Every other fest manages to do it - the idea glasto can't is absolutely ridiculous!

There's no way it costs 500k a year in maintenance

In a field in the middle of nowhere? If it's doable then I've no probs with it.

[gfa]

29 minutes ago, Superscally said:

In a field in the middle of nowhere? If it's doable then I've no probs with it.

Boomtown does it in a national park and it works fine

it uses those e wristbands for money too, they had issues last year i think (debut year) but will be sorted for sure

[DeanoL]

18 hours ago, timbrass said:

The issue with any tech solution is that if it goes wrong, it can go wrong big time for everyone all at same time. With physical paper and wristbands you can do manual workarounds (for example double wristbanding in 2005 floods) or telling punters whose tickets were misdelivered to pick up a tixket at gate A.  Also you are open to unexpected attacks.... so if I knew there was an Ethernet cable I could cut or a generator I could turn off, I might do so in the hope that everyone would be waved in.  Simple physical solutions are often the best ones. 

They clearly wouldn't just wave everyone in, it'd be a massive breach of licensing conditions. It's already established that having a queue outside going back a huge way isn't a problem, for 10, 12 hours as they literally have that overnight on Tuesday. They'd just make people wait until it was sorted.

And they run power there now I think for lights at least so you could cause significant disruption for evening arrivals already if you so wanted.

(Plus one of the benefits of etickets is you don't get misdelivered tickets at all )

[Leyrulion]

Consistently amazed by the luddites that arise every time this issue is discussed. 

Digital ticketing clearly impossible apparently. It's too remote an area to have the infrastructure for digital ticketing despite the fact that they literally build a city for 5 days with all the associated infrastructure. Impossible to do anything. 🙄

[clarkete]

3 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

Consistently amazed by the luddites that arise every time this issue is discussed. 

Digital ticketing clearly impossible apparently. It's too remote an area to have the infrastructure for digital ticketing despite the fact that they literally build a city for 5 days with all the associated infrastructure. Impossible to do anything. 🙄

Are you getting a bit hot and grumpy?

Some of the suggestions in here have been realistic but impractical for a one week event on a farm, some have been fairly laughable.

Don't confuse people who have previous experience of delivering what other people have committed to with luddites.

[Leyrulion]

7 minutes ago, clarkete said:

Are you getting a bit hot and grumpy?

Some of the suggestions in here have been realistic but impractical for a one week event on a farm, some have been fairly laughable.

Don't confuse people who have previous experience of delivering what other people have committed to with luddites.

Maybe, the question is about will they do it in the future. The answer is yes they will.