Generally speaking, I think blockchain is not a good answer for most things, but this is leading me to consider whether it might be an excellent tool for ticket economics.
Consider: Each ticket is already nearly a contract; making them into smart contracts seems very straightforward. Tickets do not have the "oracle" / "reality capture" problem many block chain applications have - tickets are essentially pure information to start with. Initial ticket sales combined with an aftermarket very closely resemble ICOs and subsequent coin trading.
AFAICT the big stumbling block is the ticket-coin-to-USD conversion; maybe a perfect fit for stable coins? Ah - the other big stumbling block is the UX around ticket redemption; making sure it's convenient, reliable and not exploitable. Hmm.
The _interesting_ part IMO is how this could work with spending money from ticket sales prior to the show; you have proof that you'll make X revenue and could borrow against it, at some rate that already includes risk factors. If you have to cancel your show, refunds are "automatic" as per whatever the smart contract specified, and the risk (borne by the lender) is (is the word?) actualized?
Fair-ish. Issue is that any entity that has free reign to modify the state of the chain can modify the tickets; such as deciding to no longer give refunds.
AFAIK, there are four entities in shows, with varying levels of trust between then: fans, venues, performers, and the ticketing company. (I'm considering ticket redemption are part of "venue"). Some ability to decentrally coordinate without complete trust seems worth exploring at least as a thought experiment.
I'm not saying this definitely is a valid application of block chain, just that it looks more like it could be than anything else I've seen.
That’s what we have legal systems for. Even if there was some technical barrier for modifying contracts, it still doesn’t work. Not sure if there’s a name for the opposite of the oracle problem but on the output side, but the theaters can still just refuse to honor the tickets. Again we’re back to it being all about the actual contract.
Also does every ticket holder run a node? Is that practical? If not, we have the oracle problem at the other end.
Consider: Each ticket is already nearly a contract; making them into smart contracts seems very straightforward. Tickets do not have the "oracle" / "reality capture" problem many block chain applications have - tickets are essentially pure information to start with. Initial ticket sales combined with an aftermarket very closely resemble ICOs and subsequent coin trading.
AFAICT the big stumbling block is the ticket-coin-to-USD conversion; maybe a perfect fit for stable coins? Ah - the other big stumbling block is the UX around ticket redemption; making sure it's convenient, reliable and not exploitable. Hmm.
The _interesting_ part IMO is how this could work with spending money from ticket sales prior to the show; you have proof that you'll make X revenue and could borrow against it, at some rate that already includes risk factors. If you have to cancel your show, refunds are "automatic" as per whatever the smart contract specified, and the risk (borne by the lender) is (is the word?) actualized?