Allowing phone images for tickets

I was surprised by the posts in the Stubhub thread indicating that (most?) Broadway houses require a physical ticket to scan and won't accept an image on a smartphone.

Over the past year or so, I've noticed that I'm in the minority when it comes to paper tickets at many venues in SF. At SF Playhouse, Victoria Theatre, and the Curran more people had their phones scanned, here in the middle of the tech universe. I'm pretty sure that SHN also accepts them - although the paper tickets for Hamilton indicate that it's probably a special case for that engagement.

How common is it for theaters to scan from phone images elsewhere?

Updated On: 3/31/17 at 04:08 PM

LizzieCurry said: "Now that I think about it, that is a little odd. I've definitely used them for when I see the Mets at CitiField, but otherwise, all my theatre experiences that used tickets that could be scanned on my phone took place in SF and Chicago.



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I've not used scanned tix anywhere in Boston...both seen it used.



Heck.Greyhound hasn't even updated to that...must be paper.

I work in a box office and the issue is the type of barcodes used. Barcodes created for Print At Home tickets are meant to be scanned from a paper print out. E Tickets, designed to be scanned from a phone, usually use QR codes instead of a traditional barcode, and use a different type of scanner, and are easier to scan from a screen. My theater does not allow tickets to be presented on a phone because they won't scan correctly. 95% of people show up having printed their Print At Home tix or with mailed or will call tix, and for the few that try to enter with the tickets on their phone we just reprint them in the box office.

Several theaters in Chicago scan bar codes right off phones... nothing special about them. Pretty much every theater here that scans tickets will take them on paper or on your phone.

I wasn't even able to get a physical ticket when I recently saw Hamilton... though I'm sure if I put up a fuss that would have been fine.

My ticket to Hamlet at the Public is a QR code that displays on a phone. Pretty cool...

Updated On: 4/1/17 at 05:00 AM

When I started seeing shows on Broadway in 2004, all Broadway theatres still ripped tickets. Around 2006, I think, theatres slowly started implementing scanning.

I think part of the reason people move to QR codes is to counter scalping of tickets. Remember a year or two ago when the Yankees moved to QR codes? Season ticket holders were furious because it made it harder for them to resell the tickets they weren't using. In Vegas some shows on Ticketmaster will send you a QR code a week in advance, but if you want it Print-At-Home, those same tickets wouldn't be available to print until 3 days prior to the show.



I also think that some theatres wouldn't want to deal with people on their phones because then people having to keep their phone on and to their QR through entry and to show their usher is simply too much for some and it would delay walk in.

Updated On: 4/1/17 at 09:01 AM

I just encountered this recently when I bought three tickets for the Pantages theater here in Los Angeles – Finding Neverland, an American in Paris, and the Bodyguard. I don't even really recall consciously making a choice to have them only on my phone. Right before an American in Paris my phone battery started dying. I had taken the metro so I didn't have my car charger. I had a battery case but my phone wasn't charging.

I realized if my phone died I would not have my ticket to have scanned to enter the theater and find my seat. I actually got there very early so I went to the box office and explained my situation and they gave me an actual ticket. I prefer the old-fashioned tickets. I especially prefer them to the ones you print home and are giant full page.