The mobile ticket
A mobile ticket is whatever the visitor has on their phone when they reach the front of the queue, and it is rarely what you imagined.
A mobile ticket is a ticket shown on a phone screen: in a wallet, in an email, or as a saved picture. Mobile ticketing removes printing and posting entirely, and puts the ticket in the one object almost every visitor is already carrying. What gets scanned is the code on the screen, not the app that happens to be showing it.
What happens in practice
Visitors arrive with the ticket in four different states. Some have it in a wallet, some have the email open, some took a screenshot and some are still searching. An entrance that only works smoothly for the first group will queue for the other three.
The good news is that a ticket on your phone is almost never actually lost, because it can be sent again in seconds. What is lost is the thirty seconds spent finding it, multiplied by however many people are behind them.
Small things that speed up the gate
Tell people before the night where their ticket is and to have it ready. A single line in an email the day before does more for the queue than anything you can change in the software on the day.
And keep allowing paper. A printed code scans as well as a screen and better in bright sun, and the visitor who prints is doing you a favour rather than being difficult.
On the phone with Passavo
Tickets are sent by email and can be saved to the phone's wallet, so the visitor picks whichever they will find again. Both carry the same code, and so does a printout.
A ticket can be sent again to the buyer from the admin in a few seconds, and at the gate it can be found by name in the scanning app, which settles the search without holding up the queue. Scanning reads a screen at low brightness as well as a printed page.
Also searched for as
- ticket on your phone
- mobile ticketing
- phone ticket
- smartphone ticket
Common questions
What if a visitor's phone is dead?
You find them by name at the door and let them in from the list. The ticket exists in the system, not only on their device.
Is a screenshot good enough?
Yes, as long as the code is fully visible and sharp. A cropped screenshot that cuts the corner of the code is the one that will not read.