Thursday, 14 April 2011

Mobile Ticketing for Events


For this last article, we are going to talk about an emergent issue in the event industry: mobile ticketing. Indeed, we are sure that you all have already been involved in a long line at the door of an event, because of a long registration process. This could be improved by this new technology implemented by MogoTix (http://www.mogotix.com/).

This company offers a fast and simple mobile ticketing service for events of any size (conferences, parties, VIP events, etc.). They publish event website and sell as well as distribute mobile tickets to attendees’ cell phones through text messages. Then, mobile tickets are scanned quickly and easily at the event site.


What are the advantages of this tool?


- It is impossible to forget the ticket. If an attendee forgets her/his phone, the application contains attendees’ lists, and registration can be done manually.


- It tracks who arrives in real time.


- It sends text messages to event organizers when VIPs are checked in.


- It notifies to attendees who else is arriving at the event.


- MogoTix sends reminders 2 hours prior to the event.


- It provides event organizers with ROI.



We would like to add that MogoTix scould promote this technology as a green one: as it reduces printed tickets and lists, it is an eco friendly tool. So, they could target green events and propose them their mobile ticketing process to be in line with their objectives.


However, we have found 2 negative issues concerning this technology. The first one concerns attendees’ phones. Indeed, in the article it is said that attendees are not required to have an iPhone or a smart phone to receive the ticket. Any web-enable phone can open a MogoTix ticket. Therefore, it doesn’t work with all phones, and it can reduce access to people who don’t have a web-enable phone. We think that MogoTix should provide those people with a printed ticket that could be sent by email (if they are not already doing it).


The second issue is about security: is there any way of making sure that the person who is using the cell phone when registering, is the one who received the ticket by text message? In other words, is it possible to send the text message to another person (for example, if finally a person doesn’t want to come to the event and send the ticket to a friend); or if someone loses her/his phone, can anyone else use the mobile ticket? MogoTix takes security seriously and the technology does not allow people to share or sell personal attendees’ information with third parties. Concerning an eventual theft, we didn’t find any information either on the article, or on the MogoTix website. We think and we hope that in this case, there is a service provided by MogoTix to cancel the mobile ticket already sent to the stolen phone. If not, we recommend them to do that in order to secure the event.




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