Just the Ticket

New research from Juniper suggests that retailers will be sending up to 3 billion mobile coupons to consumers’ phone by 2011.
‘Mobile Ticketing & Coupons, Strategies & Markets 2007-2011’ offers forecasts of user acceptance, transaction value and transactional traffic across eight key geographical regions until 2011. The 142-page study provides leading one-on-one interviews with key industry players, and combines a detailed analysis of dominant technologies, including barcodes, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and NFC (Near-field Communications),  exploring the success of a number of important applications and services within this sector from around the globe.
In addition to uncovering the potential drivers and constraints to future market growth, the report explores strategic and market developments, based on the benefits to all members of the market chain, with recommendations for maximising revenues in this rapidly-developing sector.
Juniper says the report is an invaluable tool for forecasting mobile ticketing and coupon users, in addition to average and total numbers of annual transactions and transaction value data. It also provides valuable market projections for three mobile ticketing sub-sectors: transport; sporting events; and entertainment & events .
The report looks at the current and future market size for mobile ticketing & coupons; the key strategies for mobile network operators, ticketing/coupon issuers and new entrants; the main market drivers for mobile ticketing and coupons; the key technologies that are being adopted for mobile ticketing and coupons; and at who will be the winners and losers in the mobile ticketing and coupon market.
The report costs £1,490 for a single-user PDF licence or hardback copy; £1,990 for a multi-user network PDF licence; or £2,990 for an enterprise-wide PDF licence.
You can get more details here. And a free Whitepaper here.

mobi-tickets for Czech Film Fest

UK technology company Mobiqa, Village Cinemas Czech Republic and Febiofest, are claiming a film festival first by providing movie fans with an innovative mobile ticketing service for Febiofest, the largest film festival in the Czech Republic, which began last week and runs until Friday.
Situated in the new multiplex Village Cinemas Andel in Prague, Febiofest guarantees excellent screenings of full length films, distribution premiers, retrospectives and tributes. During the evening, the event transforms itself into the Febiofest Music Festival, showcasing world music, jazz, blues, avant-garde and alternative rock concerts.
Mobiqa and Village Cinemas Czech Republic are providing ‘mobi-tickets’ to film fans who opt for the service when booking their Febiofest tickets online. Mobiqa create a barcoded mobi-ticket, tailor it specifically to the customer’s make and model of mobile phone, and then send it to the phone in the form of a standard text message. The film fan then has their barcoded ticket scanned at the entrance to the multiplex by Village Cinemas staff to gain entrance to the festival.
The service coincides with research recently released by Juniper Research which estimates that 2.6 billion mobile tickets will be delivered to just over 208 million mobile phone users by 2011. 
Mobiqa notes that the mobile ticketing service offers film fans, the organisers and the venue owner numerous benefits over traditional paper ticketing. mobi-tickets help to increase sales,  as tickets can be sold right up to the last minute. Tickets are delivered immediately after purchase so customers don’t have to queue up to collect them or worry about them arriving in the post. Mobile ticketing also helps to reduce distribution and operational costs and is more environmentally friendly than paper ticktes. Finally, says Mobiqa, organisers and venues can track attendance at the event automatically and in real-time, and the barcoded mobi-ticket can also double-up as a coupon or voucher at concession stands making the service a truly versatile, efficient and convenient means of entry.

O2 Launches Major London NFC Trial

O2 has announced the launch of the UK’s first large scale pilot of NFC (Near Field Communications) technology on mobile phones. The trial, which will involve over 500 people invited from the O2 customer base, takes place across selected sites throughout London. It begins on today, and runs for six months until the end of May 2008. The company says the trial of the O2 Wallet paves the way for the mass market use of mobile phones to pay for purchases, access events or even be used as Oyster cards for travel around London, simply by touching the phone to a reader.
“Research shows that people are more likely to return home if they leave their phone behind than their wallet or keys,” says Cath Keers, O2 UK Customer Director. “So why not have your wallet on your phone? We believe that NFC technology is going to fundamentally change the way people use their mobile phones.”
NFC is a contactless functionality, enabling a wide range of secure uses, including cashless payments, public transport and event ticketing, and smart posters. In order to make this as comprehensive a pilot as possible, O2 has brought together a broad range of partners, including Transport for London, TranSys, Barclaycard, Visa Europe, Nokia and AEG.
Each triallist will be given a Nokia 6131 NFC handset installed with the O2 Wallet. Just like a normal wallet, this will hold various everyday cards, including Oyster and Barclaycard, but in virtual form, and with NFC functionality. Trialists will be able to test a wide range of different services in London, such as making purchases in retail outlets and travelling on London’s public transport system. All participants will be asked to provide feedback on the services featured in the O2 Wallet, evaluating its ease of use, security and overall usefulness.
Accessed from the phone’s main menu, the O2 Wallet shows all the NFC services available on the handset in addition to information about each service and customer support.
All 500 triallists will have the Oyster card on their phone, enabling them to use their handset to pay for travel on the Tube, buses and trams across the Capital. They will also be able to top up their Oyster by touching their handset on Oyster ticket machines in tube stations or at Oyster ticket stops. If a triallist’s phone rings, they can still answer the call and continue to make a transaction. A call or text message will not interfere with the NFC service.
Triallists will also be able to touch the NFC-enabled handset on selected smart posters at the launch and at other locations over the course of the trial. The smart posters contain embedded tags which serve as shortcuts for services enabled through the handset. Once the user taps the poster with the handset, they will automatically dial a number, send a text message or be sent a shortcut to a mobile Internet site, with more information about the subject on the poster, such as an event or a content download.
The trial will also examine mobile payments, using the Barclaycard payment application in the O2 Wallet. A subset of triallists will be able to use the growing number of contactless payment readers at retailers in and around London to purchase goods for £10 or under. They will simply need to tap their phones on the secure reader, and transactions will be completed in a matter of seconds.
In the initial phase of the trial, Barclaycard will credit each phone with £200 worth of non-reloadable funds which triallists can use and spend as they see fit at any participating retailer. As well as making payments, they will also be able to use the phones to check available funds and to locate retailers close to them that accept contactless  payments, including Books Etc, Chop'd, Coffee Republic, EAT, Krispy Kreme, Threshers and YO! Sushi.
The partners are keen to extend the payment functionality delivered to triallists as part of the O2 Wallet, and are actively discussing the opportunities to develop the trial service further in 2008. Possible developments include PIN capability, purchases over the current £10 limit, and reloadable/credit funds capability.
AEG Europe, which operates The O2 venue, will also be looking into how the NFC handset can be used to enhance the customer experience at The O2. All triallists will be able to use their NFC handsets to gain entry into the blueroom – the exclusive bar for O2 customers and guests at the venue. The experience will be managed by ‘O2 Angels’, whose own NFC handsets will display the name of the triallists, enabling a personalised greeting into the blueroom.
“This trial is going to provide insights which will prove crucial to getting the customer experience right as we bring NFC on mobile to market.” Says Keers. “But the trial is just the start of this journey. For this to work, we will need the whole ecosystem to come together, which means mobile operators, banks and retailers all working together to fulfil a shared vision. If we get this right we can place the UK at the forefront of technology innovation.”

Mobile Tickets for Lord of The Rings Show

Trinity Mobile is powering a mobile ticketing service on behalf of O2 for the West End show, 'The Lord of the Rings’. The service enables consumers to buy, receive and access a show, all from their mobile phone. Trinity says the service will help to reduce administration costs and cut ticket touting, as well as providing a more environmentally-friendly alternative to paper tickets.
The service, which is exclusive to O2 customers, allows consumers to buy up to 10 tickets at a preferential rate of £25, compared to the normal price of £60, using a secured credit or debit card transaction over Trinity’s 'Easy Ticket' site within O2’s Active Portal. The ticket resides in the ‘My Tickets’ section of the Lord of the Rings mobile box office, accessed via the handset.
The ticket includes details of seat numbers and opening times, and has a unique barcode which can be scanned in and redeemed at the Theatre Royal, where the show is being staged. Tickets can be bought  up to 12 noon on the day, offering O2 customers the convenience of organising a night at the theatre at short notice. To access the mobile box office, O2 customers text LOTR to 2020.
Trinity says that this is the first time that UK consumers have been offered the chance to use their mobile, not only to buy a ticket, but also to gain entry to an event through a mobile ticket sent to their handset.
The Lord of the Rings mobile tickets are available for Tuesday evening performances of the show. O2 has worked with Trinity Mobile and SEE Tickets to deliver the service to its customers.
"It’s never been easier to get tickets to an event," says Nigel Dean, Head of Sales for Interactive Products at O2 UK. "For the first time, you can do absolutely everything from your mobile phone, buying your tickets on the move and redeeming them straight off your device. We believe that mobile ticketing is the future, not just for the theatre, but for all ticketed events."
Kevin Wallace, producer of The Lord of the Rings adds:
"I think it’s rather fitting that Middle-earth should be the first place to use this kind of technology. Buying tickets on your mobile and scanning your mobile phone to get into the show works like magic and is a trick I think even Gandalf himself would be proud of."

Nightclub Takes Ticketing Mobile

One of the UK’s largest nightclub chains, The Syndicate, operated by Nexum Leisure, has launched a mobile ticketing service via its website and a dedicated WAP site. The service is being promoted via posters, flyers, web and other broadcast media. Clubbers are invited to visit the Bristol club’s website  to buy tickets online and have them sent via text direct to their phone, or to text the word SYND2 to 82500, after which they are sent a WAP link. This takes the user to a ticket purchase portal where they can buy tickets using a secure credit or debit card payments system. The service is also available at The Syndicate in Blackpool, which has capacity for 5,000 clubbers.
Either way, the tickets is accessed directly from the phone. A ticket consists of a Syndicate logo, some text outlining event details, and a secure barcode. The barcode is scanned at the entrance to the club on the night of the event, using a portable wireless scanning PDA device that validates the tickets against an online ticket database. The system allows tickets to be bought throughout the night of an event, even enabling those stuck at the back of the queue to buy mobile tickets on their phones and then jump the queue to the mobile ticket VIP entrance for a small additional fee.
The Syndicate Bristol has started using the system for a variety of purposes. Early Bird tickets are offered at a discount to kick-start event sales up to two months in advance. VIP and Queue Jump tickets are sold at a premium to standard tickets before and during the event to increase revenues and streamline entry, and further promotions are being developed, including a ticket plus drink, and specific drinks promotions pushing particular brands or new drink launches.
There were over 300 mobile ticket sales the second time the service was offered, accounting for 15% of total capacity and over 50% of pre-event sales. This is an extraordinary uptake, the company says, and proves that consumers are ready to embrace mobile ticketing.
“Growing mobile ticket sales from zero to 300 in the space of two weeks is a great achievement,” says The Syndicate Bristol General Manager, Peter Cro. “We never expected it to reach that level that quickly. It just shows that people are ready for it and will accept the process readily. Our aim is to achieve 50% of pre-event ticket sales via mobile over the coming months.”
Cro says the club can also see the beginning of a rise in income due to the variety of offers and special tickets it can offer via mobile.
“A VIP or Queue Jump ticket sold at a premium is a great idea and seems to be attractive to people, enabling them to jump the queue instantly,” he says. “We will be adding various drinks promotions and other ticket types over time, and hope to see similar results from these initiatives”.
Additionally, says Cro, the mobile ticketing services means that the club staff now runs the ticketing for all our events from within the office on their own PCs, enabling them to manage inventory, sales and promotions, and react to events at the touch of a button”.
The service is powered by Trinity Mobile, whose Commercial Director Rob Clegg says:
“The Syndicate’s mobile ticketing growth has been phenomenal, and is proof for us that the market is ready for mobile ticketing. Consumers love it and take to it like a duck to water, as the process is easy and familiar to them due to the continued growth of texting and mobile Internet usage. This is a simple and straightforward step on from that.
Trinity Mobile and Nexum Leisure will now be rolling the service out to other clubs within The Syndicate stable, as well as other clubs and bars in the Nexum Group such as Zanzibar, Escapade and Halo.   

Mobile Tickets for Fulham FC Games

Ticket Text, a Dublin-based mobile technology company that provides mobile event ticketing services, has announced that it is selling tickets for Fulham Football Club’s Premiership home matches for the remainder of the 2007/08 season at Craven Cottage, via its ticket-text.com website,
Using Ticket Text’s technology, customers receive their tickets as unique barcodes sent via text message to their mobile phone. Customers simply take their phone to Craven Cottage and then scan the barcode to gain admittance. If customers happen to delete the text containing the barcode, they can receive additional texts from Ticket Text at no additional cost.
Fulham FC’s Head of Commercial Operations Olly Dale says he is delighted that Fulham is the first Premier League football club to work with Ticket Text, while Ticket Text CEO Mark McLaughlin says:
“Ticket Text is delighted that customers wanting to purchase tickets for premiership football on the banks of the River Thames can now do so via ticket-text.com. We look forward to providing our innovative service for the remainder of this season. In addition, through our relationship with our travel partner, Ryanair, the millions of customers flying into London each year will now be able to easily purchase tickets for the most popular football league in the world through www.ticket-text.com or the low fares Ryanair website."

Mobi-tickets Please!

For the second time this year, Bacardi (Thailand) chose to give gig-goers a cool, exciting way of obtaining tickets for the latest Bacardi B-Live music event, which took place on 31 August in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, which nestles in the foothills of the Himalayas. Over 60% of those who attended the event used barcoded tickets to gain entry.       
B-Live Chiang Mai, part of Bacardi’s on-going 25-country, global music extravaganza, delivering one-of-a-kind cutting edge music events, featured an eclectic mix of talented artists. Mobile ticketing specialist Mobiqa, and its Thai partner, Mobile Solutions, supplied Bacardi B-Live with mobi-ticketing capabilities for the event. Music fans were able to see local stars including Dome, Gene Futon, and Space Monkey by applying for tickets on a B-Live website, and then receiving those tickets via SMS direct to their mobile phones. Event-goers simply presented their mobi-ticket at the entrance to the gig, where it was scanned to allow entry.
“B-Live in Chiang Mai, Thailand was a cutting edge event, so we wanted everything about it to be cutting edge,” says Bacardi (Thailand) Brand Manager Guntipa Goyavatin. “Once again we chose to use Mobiqa’s mobile ticketing as it provided us with a cool, high-tech solution, in tune with today’s mobile generation.”

Eden Goes Greener With End-to-end Mobile Ticketing

The Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, is launching what it claims is the first-ever paperless ticketing system that uses mobile phones from start to finish. Through an innovative three-way partnership between The Eden Project, Swiftpass and LUUP, visitors to the world-famous global garden will be able to order, purchase and redeem their tickets using their mobile phone. This is a milestone for the advancement of mobile ticketing, the companies claim, since until now, mobile ticketing projects included a step involving a customer service representative for payment and, usually, a print-out. The service went live today.
Opened in 2001, The Eden Project is home to the world’s largest greenhouses and has hosted more than 8 million visitors to date. Its dedication to educating audiences about the importance of plants and the environmental future makes it the ideal location to provide visitors with a greener way to gain entrance. Now anyone with a mobile phone will be able to buy the type of ticket they want and walk straight past the queues by simply texting the relevant word depending on the type of ticket they want to 80988. The keywords are printed on promotional material for the attraction.
This will initiate an instant payment from their LUUP account and a barcode ticket will be sent direct to their mobile phone. The barcode is then presented to and read by scanners at the entrance, allowing the ticketholder to walk straight in. Anyone wanting more information about how to get tickets sent direct to mobile phones people should text ‘Eden info’ to 80988.
Mobile phone ticketing has been available at Eden since last summer but until now, users have had to call the box office and pay over the phone in order to get their ticket sent to their mobile. Now, with the new partnership between Swiftpass and mobile payment company LUUP the process will be quicker, easier, and will require no involvement from The Eden Project staff.
LUUP is a mobile payment system enabling consumers to send and receive payments on their mobile phones or online. Payments can be made from credit/debit cards, bank accounts and the digital cash in account holder’s ‘LUUP Wallet.’ For those who do not already have a LUUP account, the process for registering takes less than two minutes.  When a non-account holder texts the shortcode to purchase a ticket to The Eden Project they will be contacted immediately by the LUUP call centre and invited to register. For further LUUP payments, the registered user will simply need to send a text message to pay for their ticket. 
Jeff Berry, Managing Director at Swiftpass, says the development is an exciting step forward in ticketing technology.
“This is the first large scale implementation of mobile ticketing that incorporates payment and fulfilment through the handset in a very simple way” he says. “We have known there has been a missing link for some time, but that gap has now been filled thanks to the partnership with LUUP.”
The Swiftpass system is designed to be secure, with each ticket capable of being locked to the handset that receives it.  And not only is the technology safe and fast, it is also environmentally-friendly because it cuts down on the wastage associated with paper tickets. As an environmental charity, that is a particular concern for the Eden Project and its visitors.
“This development builds on the good work on ticket fulfilment we did last summer with Swiftpass” says Eden Head of ICT, Jon Curry. “Now using the LUUP payment system for the first time we are able to offer our customers, including those who are on holiday and probably have no access to our ticket website, a fully automated, paperless advanced ticketing system, using nothing but their mobile phone.”