[carlosjobim]

Combatting scalping is the easiest thing ever. Just put the name of the attendee on each ticket and if you want to be nice you can have a buyback period until a certain date before the show, where the venue purchases back your ticket if you can't go.

[lolinder]

And then what, check the ID of 50k people at the door?

[cypherpunks01]

The work of checking IDs is mostly done in US venues already, for 21+ drinking wristbands. It would have to be done differently, for sure, but a good portion of that labor is already being incurred.

More likely, the venues don't have much economic incentive, if any, to reduce ticket reselling and scalping.

[toofy]

nope, they would check like 20% to 30% of them. i’ve done work for a few non-profit performance organizations and this seems to be fairly effective in putting a large dent in reseller markets for non-transferable tickets.

resellers really don’t enjoy cc charge backs to pile up on their accounts.

[kelnos]

Yes, absolutely. Adding an ID check to a ticket check and often a bag check and sometimes metal-detector wand check seems pretty minimal to me. Or have people scan their IDs themselves when they scan their tickets; pretty much every driver's license and state ID in the US has a barcode thing on the back. Of course have enough staff at the gates to deal with the exceptions or when things don't work right.

Regardless, this already happens: I went to a concert at Chase Center last year, and they were checking everyone's IDs, not even just a random sampling of them. When I went to EDC in Vegas last year, they were checking IDs at the shuttle stops on the strip. I believe they were only doing that for age verification, but if the ID is already out, that can easily turn into identity verification.

[quesera]

They already check IDs of every entrant.

Also, in the US, your driver's license has a 2D barcode on the back which encodes your name.

The venue ticket has a QR code or similar which could also encode your name.

They already scan the venue ticket QR code. They could also scan your ID barcode, and beep differently if the names do not match.

[pants2]

This is what Comic Con does but it's more like 130,000 people

[carlosjobim]

Why not? They check hand bags anyway. Even if you don't check everybody it is a huge deterrent to scalpers if the buyer can not be sure that they will be allowed in. Imagine paying for expensive tickets, travelling a long distance, paying for a hotel room etc. And then you're not getting in to see the show.

[ysavir]

Would it have to be more or less speedy than an airport's TSA line?

[fnfjfk]

Yes? They already do this at music venues to card people for putting wristbands or Xs on their hands.