6 cases for selling tickets as NFTs
I originally shared the following thoughts around the time of the Taylor Swift / Ticketmaster debacle in 2022. Over the last few days, the conversation seems to have resurfaced, with @onopen dropping their Onchain Tickets Manifesto (pictured, with nearly 15k mints at time of writing): zora.co/collect/base:0xeba4551052568406f8c490320b94b6478b81930e/1
At the same time, the wider crypto bull market has been attracting renewed criticism/cynicism from the anti-NFT crowd. Some of this has focused on ticketing, so I thought I'd revisit this subject.
When I discussed this topic back in 2022, I predicted that selling tickets as NFTs would be normalised within 5 years. The fact is, most "tickets" nowadays are already digital. (When was the last time you bought a paper ticket to a show?) Putting them onchain has numerous advantages.
Here are 6 reasons why NFTickets make sense:
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Provably limited supply.
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Provable authenticity.
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Allow-lists reduce risk of bots buying up supply during pre-sale (as happened with Swift).
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Removing middlemen like Ticketmaster (who've been known to add on 75% to prices in platform fees) could mean more affordable tickets without artist losing revenue.
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You can keep NFTs in your wallet forever as mementos (I wish I still had tickets from life-changing shows I went to as a teen).
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Ticket NFTs can retrospectively be given extra utilities (e.g. discount on next show, free merch, access to token-gated experiences etc), becoming part of a potentially life-long connection between artist and fan.
The combination of 1) and 2) effectively eliminates ticket fraud: if it's not from the official collection, it's a scam.
Of course, NFTs can still be sold on the secondary market way above their original price, but: a) if you've done enough to get on the allow-list, you probably want to go to the show; and b) the artist can actually benefit from these sales by collecting secondary royalties (where enforced).
I've focused here on tickets to in-person events, but of course online events (like livestreamed shows or performances in the metaverse) represent a burgeoning sector where NFTs make even more sense as entry passes. More on that side of things soon.
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