NFTs are driving innovation across the globe, including within tickets and passes. Paper tickets have been used for over a century, and have served as access allowance to events, shows, concerts and other great memories. Blockchain technology and smart contracts, are changing all of that.

NFT Tickets & Passes Disrupting Traditional Methods

NFTs hold the solution to one of the biggest problems faced by the event industry since the original invention of tickets and passes. NFTs provide a solution for event businesses including within counterfeit tickets and third party vendors taking advantage of the secondary market. These solution includes creating an additional revenue stream, and should certainly not be overlooked.

What is an NFT Ticket?

 NFTs, Non-Fungible Tokens, are smart contracts that live on a blockchain. These smart contracts remove the need for intermediaries in transactions and automate procedures. NFTs are held in a blockchain wallet and can easily be verified for authenticity. 

NFT tickets are digital tickets on the blockchain. These NFTs would be stored in your designated NFT wallet and proving ownership of an authentic NFT, would be extremely simple. The ticket would live forever, as a memory in the digital wallet, and could even be sold or traded on an NFT marketplace later on.

The Challenges Solved by NFT Passes

NFT tickets solve three main problems, memorabilia, distribution and counterfeiting. 

Although people enjoy holding on to physical memorabilia, it often gets lost or damaged over time. NFTs are stored forever on the blockchain and always accessible in a person’s digital wallet. On the distribution side, musicians, artists and other event hosts struggle with the problem of third party vendors reselling tickets at extreme prices. NFTs put distribution back in the control of the creators, allowing true ownership of their work. This includes adding royalties on the NFTs sold, and better control over the initial distribution through the blockchain.

 Ticket fraud can cost event businesses millions of dollars annually and paper tickets are extremely easy to replicate. This has been a problem for the industry since tickets were first introduced. NFT tickets are traceable on the blockchain, allowing anyone to check the public ledger and verify the exact history, ownership and origin of the smart contract.

NFT tickets offer a unique opportunity for companies to take advantage of, blockchain transparency. Living on the blockchain, NFTs are impossible to fake in terms of data, history and ownership. An NFT ticket, for a virtual or physical event, can be distributed via airdrop or purchased by individuals using different methods. These NFTs are verifiable and grant exclusive access to a group, club or event.

Beyond stopping counterfeit tickets, it is a fairly common practice to hold onto old concert tickets or event passes from a memorable day. Many people have a box of old memories, or a specific drawer, but these paper tickets often get lost or ruined over the years. NFT passes are digital and live inside your wallet forever, offering that beloved memory decades in the future.

Also extremely convenient and simple to utilize, this digital ticketing option will soon be sought after by event goers for their simplicity. NFT passes simplify the entrance and pass validation aspect of events with quick and easy verification, an ideal solution for consumers.

Companies are both providing a service to their customers and themselves by using NFT tickets. The blockchain will help put an end to fraud and make verifying authenticity of passes simple. NFT tickets also present an additional, optional revenue stream for business owners. 

If desired, these NFTs can be programmed to be tradeable and resellable between individual parties in the open market, with a royalty fee sent to the NFT creator for every transaction. Royalties are one of the best sources of additional revenue and the situation presents a win-win for businesses.

Physical events are only the beginning of NFT passes. Gated content has risen in popularity over the last decade, in tandem with the internet. NFTs present a new and more efficient way to gate content or virtual events/spaces. Additional revenue sources and simplifying the business processes are followed by increased customer loyalty, also driving retention rates and customer LTV. NFTs being digital can even help market the product or event and bring further awareness.

Corporations Utilizing NFT Tickets & Passes

Coachella, The NFL and Budweiser all have one thing in common, and it’s NFT tickets. Three vastly different businesses offer different services for different markets. Coachella, the popular music festival, recently used NFTs to offer passes for their concerts. With different tiered levels of access, the most expensive was a lifetime pass to all future Coachella concerts, both virtual and physical.

Budweiser, one of the world’s largest beer companies, who dropped its own NFTs, held an event event using NFT tickets. One of the Budweiser NFT collections offered access to an exclusive event at Budweiser including a BBQ, live music, meeting the Clydesdale horses and more fun. 

The National Football League did things a little differently, not exactly using NFTs as a ticket for entry. The league sent POAPs (Proof-Of-Attendance-Protocol) to all attendees of the 2022 Super Bowl. Very similar to NFTs, these Super Bowl POAPs will live as a forever digital memory in fans’ wallets. 

As all these unique companies find new ways to get involved with NFTs, and more traditional problems are being solved by the innovative technology, it will only leave people guessing as to who will be next to step into the world of Web3.

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