Can you imagine the positive environmental impact of issuing tickets as NFTs rather than on paper?
NFT Ticketing
This is post number 7 in my "What is an NFT?" series here in the LBI world. If you wanna learn more about NFT technology and some of the use cases, I encourage you to take a peak at these posts:
- General overview of NFTs as a whole for noobs
- Deep dive into how vIRL NFTs can be used for commerce
- Overview of how musicians can sell music as NFTs
- Some ways that blendable NFTs can be used for various things
- A look at NFTs being used in DeFi
- Benefits of legal documents as NFTs
As always, the goal here is to highlight some things that can be done with NFTs aside from just profile picture JPEGs. The technology has a ton of use cases that are being overlooked by people trying to get rich flipping over-hyped collectibles. Today, we're here to look at how NFTs could be used to replace physical tickets.
Can you imagine the amount of paper that is used every single day to print physical tickets such as concert tickets, movie tickets, and even flight tickets? I'd bet that it is an incredibly large amount and that has a huge impact on the environment. According to this article, humans use 300 million tons of paper every year. That's nearly 1 million tons of paper every single day, or over 2 trillion trees per year. Using NFTs to replace physical tickets could have a huge environmental impact along with a ton of other benefits.
Of course there is recycling which helps a little, but humans are incredibly wasteful. You don't think about these kinds of things every day, but the amount of energy burned to produce paper is also insane. We also need trees to breathe, so you know... It would be cool if we weren't killing so many of them. Ok, I'll stop with the environmental talk. I know it's boring but it's something incredibly important. We don't want to end up like Earth in the movie Wall-E where they abandoned the planet because it was full of trash and no longer able to sustain life.
Aside from that, how can using NFT technology better serve everyone when it comes to ticketing? Let's take movie tickets for example. Obviously people have the option to purchase tickets online, but even then you are issued a physical stub when you arrive at the theatre. What's the point of the physical stub issued at the theatre? Who the hell really knows. I guess it's a sort of receipt but is that really necessary? With an NFT ticket... You could just scan your wallet QR code and enter the movie screening.
NFT tickets actually reduce the amount of paper used while making everything more convenient. Imagine the online ordering system being sort of like an NFT marketplace. Each ticket is redeemable (burned) to see the movie at a certain time. You pay for the ticket via your WAX cloud wallet and receive the ticket instantly in your wallet. Once you arrive at the theatre, you scan your QR code and enter. You get to the concession stand and they let you know that you were airdropped a coupon for 10% off snacks.
Your wallet is scanned, your discount is applied, and snacks are paid for all without touching a physical wallet.
AMC Theatres is really changing the game with their integration of NFTs on their platform. Tickets are not yet issued as NFTs, but at this point it seems kind of inevitable. Right now, you can purchase tickets to the new TOP GUN movie and receive a free NFT. Maybe this NFT gets you a discount or free snack at the next TOP GUN movie that comes out.
They have actually been doing this for a while. Since Spiderman: No Way Home came out, AMC has been finding cool ways to reward people that purchase tickets online. This saves them a metric shit ton of paper, which essentially lets them make money. It also provides a unique marketing opportunity for the company that makes the movie by connecting them straight to the people that see the movie. Maybe you're airdropped a random free movie ticket NFT because you purchased tickets early.
The tickets themselves evolving into NFTs also gives consumers the option to resell the tickets if they are unable to see the movie. Instead of having to try to get a refund for the ticket, the user could easily sell it to another person or transfer it to someone else. Maybe they would be able to burn it and receive a refund instantly in their wallet?
Imagine the same principle being used for concert tickets. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people get scammed with fake physical concert tickets. No more fakes. It's all verifiable instantly right there on the blockchain. Later scammers.
We're in the middle of a transition to a mostly digital lifestyle anyway. Might as well embrace it. Web3 is here to stay.
What are your thoughts? How could we benefit from this?
Post written by: @l337m45732 aka NiftyPhill.