Will verified vaccination speed up the return to traditional live events?
While we all drool over the safe return of live events, Ticketmaster is hard at work trying to make it a reality.
One idea underway involves verifying fans’ COVID-19 vaccination status before allowing access to future concerts. The news arrives after reports of the potential efficacy of the vaccine—developed by Pfizer and BioNTech—which allegedly has a 90% prevention rate, according to the preliminary analysis. The vaccine was tested on 43,500 people in six countries and so far no safety concerns have been raised. In order to have it ready by the end of the month, the two companies will be applying for emergency approval.
Mark Yovich, the president of Ticketmaster, spoke to Billboard to share that the ticketing giant is working on a framework for post-pandemic fan safety that will use smartphones to verify fans’ vaccination status or whether they’ve tested negative for the virus within a 24 to 72 hour window.
“We’re already seeing many third-party health care providers prepare to handle the vetting – whether that is getting a vaccine, taking a test, or other methods of review and approval – which could then be linked via a digital ticket so everyone entering the event is verified,” Yovich explained. “Ticketmaster’s goal is to provide enough flexibility and options that venues and fans have multiple paths to return to events, and is working to create integrations to our API and leading digital ticketing technology as we will look to tap into the top solutions based on what’s green-lit by officials and desired by clients.”
Last week, Ticketmaster also launched SmartEvent, a new suite of technology that aims to help fans safely return to live events through tools like the Social Distance Seating Tool, which “uses custom algorithms that consider venue size, distance between seats and many more data points to create unique seating strategies for each event.”
Source: NME
