The bar code’s days are numbered

TORONTO — When fans score tickets for events at the Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg in the future, they might notice the absence of a familiar feature.

The theatre’s operator, True North Sports and Entertainment, is testing a new Ticketmaster system that gives venues the option to omit bar codes that would usually be scanned to validate a ticket’s authenticity.

It could be an early sign that the days of the bar code are numbered as technological improvements allow companies to replace them with more secure digital tickets with codes embedded in a fan’s phone or a Wi-Fi connected wristband that lets them track consumers for both security and data-collection purposes.

“The bar code’s going to go away,” Ticketmaster’s CEO Michael Rapino told a Goldman Sachs investor conference last fall.

His company has stayed fairly quiet about its experiments with ditching the bar code through Ticketmaster Presence — a program that allows venues to let fans scan e-tickets embedded with a digital token instead of a bar code and stored on their phone or smartwatch at selfservice terminals to gain entry to events.

Ticketmaster started pushing Presence amid its ongoing crusade against bots that buy up large portions of tickets within seconds after they go on sale fraudsters that dupe ticket buyers in the resale market by photocopying a ticket and reselling it.

Presence not only directs fans to the shortest lines or parking lots with the most empty spaces, but offers a sales and marketing edge because it gives Ticketmaster access to reams of data on eventgoers and their habits.