In a recent reprint from 1978, the question was, “Why does the movie ticket taker hand you back half your ticket?”
So my question is, why don’t they do that anymore (or rarely)? I’ve gone to plays, the circus, and to sporting events where they scan your ticket. You keep the entire ticket. It would be a lot faster if they just tore off half and gave your your stub. Do they really need exact inventory control? They know how many tickets were sold. Any unused ticket becomes invalid once the event ends.
I assume that some computer recorded your ticket usage. Any attempt to re-use the ticket would be flagged instantly. Wouldn’t the stub work just as well?
Does it prevent counterfeiting? What’s to prevent me from counterfeiting a ticket (including the bar code) and selling one. The poor sap who buy’s #2 won’t get in even though it might be the genuine ticket.
A related story: I went to a ball game, but my partner became ill during the 2nd inning and we had to leave. As we were walking back to the subway, someone asked me for my used ticket. I declined because I assumed he was going to try and sell it. How do the ball parks prevent this?
Once they scan your bar code upon your initial entry, the ticket can’t be used again. If you gave someone (or sold) your ticket, they’d be denied entry.
That’s the way the scanners are supposed to work. I remember when the SF Giants opened PacBell Park they made a big deal of the modern turnstiles that operated by waving your paper ticket under a scanner. It was supposed to make getting in faster, easier (not really in practice) and cut down on ticket fraud (e.g., reusing a ticket, or counterfeit tickets).
I went to a concert a few years ago with this system, and our tickets were printed off the computer. The side entrance we went into was just taking the entire printed off sheet, to be scanned in later because that entrance wasn’t wired up. I could have printed that thing off 100 times and sold them in the parking lot!
Part of this question was never answered when I originally posted it.
When I go to a baseball game, there are scalpers selling tickets at the subway, 400m away. If one buys at this point, is there any way of telling whether the tickets have been used? Suppose four guys enter the park as soon as it opens and then pass the “used” tickets back to an accomplice who sells them at the subway station. By the time the buyer discovers that the tickets are used, it’ll be at least 10 minutes before the buyer can get back to the subway, at which point the scalper is long gone. The old method of tearing the ticket in half would show this.
If selling used tickets is as easy as I’m thinking, then no one would buy a ticket on the secondary market.
At most major sporting events, concerts, etc. with reserved seating all tickets are electronically scanned. The system registers when each seat is scanned in. If the same ticket is used twice or a copy of a ticket already scanned attempts to enter, the scanner will reject the ticket.
The OP knows this. They are asking why they don’t do something to physically mark that the ticket has been used. Because you can take that pristine un-used ticket and pass it out the fence to Marty and Marty can go sell it on the subway to some rube who takes it to the scanner and finds that it’s already in use.
If it had been torn somehow or marked with a pen or something, this couldn’t happen.
Of course one could just buy one legitimate ticket online, print it 100 times, and sell them say in the subway, taking care to get out of there before they come back and look for you.
True. I don’t go to sporting events, but I go to concerts from time to time. Every concert I’ve been to in the last 10 years offered the option of print-at-home tickets. They mail you a pdf file and you print it out on your own printer. You can make a thousand pristine copies and not worry about getting caught passing it out the fence.
They are simply conceding the fact that it doesn’t do any good to mark used tickets. The scanner will be the final arbiter. If the scanners says “used” you are not getting in.
However, I doubt that anyone would buy such a home-printed ticket from a scalper unless they were a complete rube. Physical tickets sold at the box office are different. While one could perhaps smuggle used tickets of this kind out of the stadium after using them, I think it might be difficult to do so on a large scale.
Well, let’s put it this way, they must use the scanner because of the existence of print-at-home and other remotely printed tickets. This has the bonus effect of helping to detect counterfeit box office tickets.
If the ticket taker had to then put down the scanner, pick up a marker (or use two hands to rip the ticket), this would effectively double the time to process the line. That means they either have to hire more ticket takers, delay the show, or piss off people. What’s the benefit? Protect people who buy tickets from subway scalpers? I don’t think they place a high priority on that.
We’ve got a new technology. The ticket taker aims a scanner at a ticket, the scanner says go or no-go. Simple as can be. Why add an extra step?
Why would you think this? In addition to the numerous other advantages scanned tickets provide, in my experience it’s pretty fast. And either way, security check is the holdup going into most big events.
Depending on the level of risk they were willing to accept, they may not have been invalidating the tickets as they were scanned. They may just have been using the system to count attendance or validate that the ticket was legitimate.
I had the same thing happen to me where I lost a ticket and got a replacement only to have someone get in to the stadium using the original ticket (purchased from a scalper I guess).
Another benefit: if you’re a subscriber and lose your ticket, they can issue a new one with a different bar code and mark the original bar code as invalid.
Ticket tearing was to destroy the ticket, as they didn’t make different tickets for different sessions.
These days when you use self-print or voucher, you go to the counter to change it for a booking for this session, and get the ticket specific to this session. The session may have a code, eg K or L or M… you’d have to know the correct code up front to print on forgery…
So… what if your friend buys session specific tickets, then he comes out to your car and you copy it in your car. ? How does the cinema or show know ? Whats the use of tearing your ticket ? How does that stop you using “it” again ? You could have a photo copy made…
All they can do is have anti-copy measures (silver holograms and such) , reserved seat numbers or scanning to check for re-use… scanning for re-use may not be such a successful method if they don’t control/observe people leaving (eg going back to their car to get something ? )
Example from my life: the vast majority of the tickets sold to the recent run of Garth Brooks shows in Tulsa were only available as downloads. I bought one on the street outside for a price that I was OK with - but the only things any of the scalpers had were print at home tickets.