this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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I'm still not seeing the difference between this and an entry in a standard SQL database.
I don't see how this is cheaper, either. A venue management company using a separate marketplace adds complexity, instead of managing the ticket in-house. It adds interoperability, sure, but also management and development work. And I certainly wouldn't trust each venue to securely implement it themselves.
You aren't seeing a difference between what I described and a SQL database? I work in IT and I'm not sure of your background. First, nobody opens a SQL database to the public. There's a ton of code surrounding every database. How do you think a SQL database ensures only "one owner" of a ticket? It requires identity tracking and management as the tip of the iceberg. And how do you think a SQL database allows people to exchange ownership of the ticket? It requires creating uniquely identified tokens, and code to bridge across systems and exchange the UIDs around. On and on. Almost no venues are doing this in-house, I am not sure what you mean by that.
You're not thinking of any complicated scenarios if you think ticket sales can be "just a SQL database". Ticketmaster offers a ton of management around tickets specifically because they are not using any generalized exchange platform (e.g. an NFT standard). With NFTs the bar is lowered for venues to manage it themselves. Posting NFTs to a NFT exchange is dead simple. You don't need an IT department, hosting costs, staff, call center, etc. to support it. You need a couple of point of sale devices for verification at the door (something they generally already need).
I feel like you're putting out mixed messages or I'm not understanding your point. You wouldn't trust venues to use NFTs successfully because they need to do something specific? Or you are referring to in-house development not being done securely? My overall point is, NFT exchange becomes a standard around which venues can operate independently with significantly less overhead, is simpler for the consumer, and cuts out predatory centralized ticket services.
Anyways, cheers. I think there's a lot of other interesting cases for NFTs but people tend to focus just on jpeg thumbnails.
Not the person you're talking to, but it seems like a stretch that some little nightclub will want to build and maintain their own smart contract infrastructure. It's not just issuing the tickets, it's also building and distributing the tools to quickly validate the hundreds/thousands of attendees every night.
For example, it's not enough just to validate that everyone at the gate has an NFT. I could enter the venue with a valid token, and then transfer it to my friend still outside once I'm through the door. So now the bouncer needs to track what tickets have already been scanned, and you probably want it to update off-chain (faster and no gas fees).
Not that I can pretend to know what already goes in to a venue supporting TicketMaster, but I figure there's got to be a reason why these middlemen were wanted in the first place. That reason is probably about venues wanting to do music and not tech support.
Ack. I'm not going to pretend like I've thought up the whole business plan, but it's well known the centralized ticket agencies have huge markups. Ticketmaster's ticketing business is something like $3B in revenue with $1B in profit.
I'm sure there's still a need venue services, I didn't mean to suggest the venue could or want to be entirely in-house. Maybe I'm minimizing that part of their business, but if tickets are NFTs it's so much easier to avoid vendor lock-in for expensive scanners and day-of services.
A database indexing scanned tickets is cheap if you don't want to burn/transfer the NFT at the door (depends on the network costs too). But again maybe I'm trivializing what Ticketmaster does (IMO I don't think I am).
But Blockchain/NFTs solve the easy part of the problem that is already sufficiently solved with a database. Now you're suggesting using NFTs and a database? Why bother.
What is your background in IT? I briefly explained that a database is not "just" a database when it comes to building a marketplace/exchange, there is a ton of infrastructure and code. The problem is that it is all proprietary and not following any kind of open standard. In comparison, the database schema for "checking in" to an event is dead simple: (ticket id, checked in). You could literally print off paper and do it analog if you wanted, it's that simple. If you tell me your background maybe I can make a more specific analogy, but the infrastructure + code + database schema for a marketplace is like the difference between a golf cart and an F1 car. Or a grocery checklist and a novel. These are many orders of magnitude different.
Why bother? Because it sucks paying fees. Literally billions of dollars extracted by middleware companies. Every stupid ass website is charging fees for everything because it's all centralized crap. My wife wanted to go to a popular musical, and for 5 tickets I'm paying literally an extra ticket worth in "convenience fees". I paid for a couple more tickets for my siblings to join, and they ended up not being able to make it day of. I posted them on StubHub and one sold for less than value (and more fees!), and the other didn't.
The "general problem" of ticketing infrastructure - generating, marketplace, exchanging - has been solved with an NFT open standard at a fraction of the cost in comparison to what these parasitic companies are extracting. Why bother? Because I'm tired of our fees culture.
You can replace the middlemen without involving Blockchain.
I am not saying the problem doesn't exist, I'm saying Blockchain is overly complicated, inflexible and superfluous.
Whatever solution you design with Blockchain, I can redesign without Blockchain without losing anything -- and gaining simplicity.