![]() I didn’t have to call and wait on hold or visit a TicketMaster outlet or walk up to the box office. Between the two paragraphs above, I literally bought 4 tickets to a Pirates game. I realize as I write this it’s turning into a “Things were better in my day!” post which is not what I intended. Now you have the little hand-jive dance of trying to hold your phone at the right angle so the barcode scanner recognizes it and instead of “Enjoy the game” the usher is muttering, “Is your brightness turned up all the way?” Handing a ticket to an usher and having them rip off a piece and utter an “Enjoy the game!” was one of those weird moments as a kid where you felt like a grown-up for some reason. Seeing them shuffle through stacks of paper makes them seem more like unorganized accountants than salesmen working in a questionably legal occupation. Walking to a game and seeing the scalpers fan out stacks of tickets was a peek into a slightly seedy world. Seeing that book of ten tickets show up in my mailbox was fantastic. ![]() For a very brief time in the pre-Stanley Cup days of the Lightning, I was a partial season ticket holder. ![]() That feeling continued as I grew up and was able to afford them on my own. I’d soak in all of the details from the section and seat numbers to the “agreement” on the back which boiled down to – if you get hit with a foul ball, don’t come crying to us. I don’t know how he got them, but I was always excited when he pulled out a ticket and handed it to me. It’s not a huge thing like seeing a team win a championship or celebrating the birth of your child, but it’s still something that is lost in an increasingly digital world – the tactile feel of holding an actual ticket in your hands.Īs a kid, it was always a treat when my dad secured tickets to a baseball game. In a rush to make things more efficient and user friendly, there is a small bit of joy is lost. So it’s a win-win situation, right? Sure… They also can track their season ticket members buying habits. It also makes it harder for tickets to be counterfeited or sold on a non-team/league approved third party site. Imagine how many printed tickets were wasted for all of those early 2000s Tampa Bay Devil Rays games. ![]() Sure those things are nice, but it also helps the teams out. Teams tout the benefits – no more lost paper tickets, easier to share (as long as everyone has the app!) quicker access to games and a more streamlined fan experience. The NHL plans to be fully RFID by next season. It’s a growing trend in sports and most likely will be the norm over all sports within the next five years. Tampa Bay Lightning season ticket holders are quite familiar with this system as the club switched over to a similar process last season. The Ravens, like so many other teams, had succumbed to the digital age. Instead of a book of tickets featuring various Ravens there was a lanyard, a plastic ticket with seat information about the size of a gift card to attach to the lanyard and a postcard-sized instructional guide. One thing I noticed that was different from last year was that there was a lack of actual tickets. My family and some friends, still grouped largely in the Maryland area, started posting their Baltimore Ravens season ticket packages. It’s that time of the year where fans of a different sport start receiving special packages in the mail.
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