Just getting back from the US Open, I am tired of seeing great seats at sold out events stay empty. Spectators generally purchase tickets months on in advance, so naturally last minute problems keep some at home too late [or too lazy] to give away, scalp or eBay the choice seats.

What about a service, by monopolistic TicketMaster or not, where you can cancel your tickets for a partial refund say 75% [minus heavy 'service fees']. Canceled tickets are made available like stand-by spectators- like the airlines. The original owners get cash back, last minute fans get seats, the promoters make even more money and the performers get a packed venue... Win-win all around.

Caveat is that security is needed that only the true owners can cancel.
-- last_minute_fan, Sep 08 2001

Visible Results http://www.visibleresults.com/
Could be reinvented as a ticketing solution [FloridaManatee, Oct 04 2004]

Ticket brokers http://www.google.c...cket+broker+service
[krelnik, Oct 04 2004]

Can the idea be extended to replace drunk fans?

Please!
-- dalal, Sep 09 2001


What follows is really a new idea, but it's sufficiently similar in name to attract criticism if I post it as such:

Visible Results make the Graphicard thermal re-writable customer loyalty cards (link). These let you keep track of reward points and display a message (like instant win).

I'd like to use this technology to make re-writable tickets. Each could be given an encrypted optically-read bar-code as an identifier or checksum to validate of verify what is written on the ticket.

The system is like existing smart card ticketing systems, except: it's much, much cheaper to produce, displays information that can be read without a reader and is paper-slim.

Used this way, tickets could be recycled, re-assigned, relocated, etc.

If you lost your ticket, you could have it reprinted for a nominal charge, because the turnstile would validate the ticket with the ticketing database on entry - it could even flash a message like "your non-smoking request has been granted. Refer to you ticket for seat re-assignment."
-- FloridaManatee, Feb 11 2003


This idea is very baked in the US: they are called "Ticket Brokers". You call them up, they buy the tickets from you at a discount, and resell them to someone else.
-- krelnik, Feb 11 2003



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