Blockchain Ticketing Could Have Prevented the Champions League Fake Tickets Fiasco

Blockchain Ticketing: The recent final of the Champions League tourney was one of the most prestigious soccer events in the world. However, it was marred by a massive ticketing scandal. It could have been prevented, says Asaf Fybish.

The Champion Leagues final event saw anywhere between 30,000 to 40,000 people trying to enter the Stade de France. This was the venue for the match between Spain’s Real Madrid and English club Liverpool. Fans turned up with fake/unverifiable tickets. This led to utter chaos on the streets of Paris. Police intervention was required and the match had to be delayed by nearly an hour.

The Champions League is an elite club-level competition. The top sixteen soccer clubs from across Europe play against one another to earn the right to be crowned champions. The tournament first came into existence in 1955. It has since been recognized as being the premier club-level soccer tournament in the world, attracting millions of viewers annually.

However, this year’s finals saw major fraud at an industrial level. France’s Interior minister Gérald Darmanin noted that the embarrassing spectacle was the direct result of poor ticket filtration practices maintained by the Stade de France and the French Football Federation. He highlighted: “70% of the tickets coming into the Stade de France were fake. Fifteen percent of fake tickets also were after the first filtering … more than 2,600 tickets were confirmed by UEFA as non-validated tickets even though they’d gone through the first filtering.”

Blockchain ticketing could have prevented the entire fiasco

Straight off the bat, it should be noted that blockchain technology employs a technological concept referred to as “smart contracts.” Simply put, these digital contracts help facilitate seamless transitions between buyers and sellers while maintaining a high degree of data accountability and traceability. 

To elaborate, when a ticket sale is made using a blockchain system, ticket sellers can easily verify the identity of their buyers and vice versa. Furthermore, each individual ticket can be directly linked to an actual person. Promoters and ticketing platforms are afforded the ability to set certain resale restrictions so as to ensure a fairer, more secure marketplace for everyone.

As far as the security side of things go, each ticket is assigned with a unique, immutable, and verifiable transaction on the blockchain or denoted using a non-fungible token (NFT). As a result, each individual ticket/NFT is linked to a real person. This completely eliminates the possibility of someone pretending to own a ticket to an event that they may not have actually signed up for. This is because a record of each associated transaction is available on the underlying decentralized ledger. 

Therefore, it stands to reason that if such a ticketing system were to have been employed during this year’s Champions League finals, the aforementioned fake ticket scam could have been quite easily avoided.

Here are some notable projects that are developing a blockchain ticketing solutions:

ShareRing

ShareRing is a user-focused blockchain platform that allows for the issuance, storage, verification and sharing of digital data (be it tickets, personal information, documents, etc) in a highly seamless, streamlined fashion. 

The platform offers a suite of ‘Access Solutions’ that enable users to gain entry to different venues, buildings, and events in a convenient, safe and efficient manner using their personal ShareRing ID. All while allowing them to retain complete control over their sensitive info.
To elaborate, trust is established amongst all of the involved parties via the use of a decentralized ledger that helps deliver a high degree of transparency around the authenticity of each document. 

The platform is seeking to eliminate the need for any physical documents, improve manual operating procedures and allow for contactless digital transactions.

GUTS

GUTS is a blockchain platform designed primarily to promote the concept of “honest ticketing.” It can help put an end to secondary market prices where resale tickets are often sold at exorbitant rates. The offering helps tackle widespread issues relating to ticketing fraud. Thanks to its novel operational design, it allows users to retain total control and insight of their data during the entirety of an event cycle.

GUTS’ native application registers all of the tickets that are sold via it on an immutable ledger, linking them directly to their rightful owners and making fraud impossible. Furthermore, in addition to the creation and validation of any type of tickets, GUTS also helps in the facilitation of legitimate ticket resales, allowing fans to resell them on controlled secondary markets.

B.A.M

B.A.M is a tamper-proof digital NFT ticketing solution that is secured via the use of an encrypted blockchain network. The platform helps eliminate the need for black markets while allowing users to maximize their revenue from secondary trading. To elaborate, B.A.M gives users complete control over their transactions that may have emanated from any associated primary or secondary market. 

The project comes with a well-developed ecosystem that governs all of one’s sales alongside a wallet app that manages users’ tickets. B.A.M’s associated marketplace allows for the buying and selling of tamper-proof NFT tickets and E-Tickets seamlessly. This is all while affording clients the ability to devise event microsites, widgets, etc. Not only that, the marketplace can also be used as an avenue to make concert/event memorabilia purchases as well as other onsite buys such as beverages, food, etc.

GET Protocol

Quite like many of its aforementioned contemporaries, GET Protocol helps in the issuance of tickets on a global scale. The platform is designed to distribute tickets for any event in the form of digital collectibles (NFTs). As a result, it is quite easy for all of the involved parties to get clear, verifiable data related to every purchase instantaneously.

GET Protocol offers a complete ticketing infrastructure with blockchain and NFT integration that has been validated by users all over the world. Also, its digital architecture allows clients to bring user-friendly scale-free ticketing to local markets under their own branding. At press time, the project has its footprint in over 100 countries and has helped over 400 artists.

Blockchain ticketing: Conclusion

As the world switches over to blockchain ticketing, hopefully fiascos such as this year’s Champion’s League final will be a thing of the past.

About the author

Asaf Fybish is a blockchain enthusiast and early adopter. He owns and operates GuerrillaBuzz, an unconventional public relations agency. He has been consulting and investing in various crypto startups since 2017. Prior to getting into crypto, he dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player, but this clearly didn’t work out. Asaf has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems.

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