Pre-9/11, taking a flight, especially a domestic flight, was a fairly enjoyable experience. There were some security measures in place but generally it was an open and casual experience for those traveling and those meeting travelers at the gate. (Yes, you used to be able to meet someone at the gate as they came off the plane.)
After 9/11, security around flying tightened up significantly. Now there are long lines to get into a terminal, removing shoes and belts, and restrictions on how much liquid you can pack in your carry-ons. COVID will be the 9/11 of the live events industry and unfortunately what was once an open and casual experience will become less enjoyable with more incentives to not go.
The Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (STAR) in Great Britain published an article in which they state that “the industry must begin to commit to practical solutions for the future and invest in intuitive, simple customer-centric solutions that build confidence in the sector once again.”
One issue they address is the idea of “ghost tickets” or those tickets in an order not used by the primary purchaser. If someone buys four tickets in an order, the venue has no idea who specifically used three of the tickets or even if the purchaser attended. In the era of contact tracing, it may be required for a real person to be attached to each ticket. This will complicate and slow down the sales process as well as feel invasive for many patrons. The idea of just walking up and purchasing a ticket, particularly with cash, may just be gone forever.
STAR goes on to predict that customers can expect when attending live events that ID verifications, pre-event health checks and on-site validation will be part of the experience. This will be needed for contact tracing and “assessing customers’ likelihood of transmitting the virus before entry.”
“Long queues are never good for the customer and venues often spend considerable time and resources keeping them short. However, entering a venue may become more complex in future due to the enhanced level of checks needed.” – STAR
To try and control the long lines and improve the process, some venues have opted for a simple online form to be filled out, creating a patron testimonial. Other venues have called upon software providers to integrate the process into the customer check in process. Ultimately, we are headed towards the health passport. This will be some kind of identification that demonstrates a recent negative test result or proof of immunity following a vaccine or exposure.
“If, in future, it becomes a requirement for venues to check an individual’s ‘health passport’ alongside their ticket we will need to ensure that this extra step in the ingress process works seamlessly when managing the entrance flow.” – STAR
I don’t think any of this bodes well for live entertainment. Pre-COVID, we already had a challenge of getting people to leave their houses to come to our venues, now we will require a stringent admission and identification process to participate in a live experience.
The good news is that the audience has already shown resilience in adapting to being subjected to a metal detector sweep and bag-searches and more recently a willingness to participate in social distanced seating and temperature checks. The problem is that each of these steps creates an additional barrier to someone attending your event. Venues, producers, and presenters will need to work very hard to minimize these hurdles get the experience back to as open and casual as possible.
Remember when attending a concert was fun?
The source article for this post can be found at Ticketing Business News.
