Skycore is hoping to bring mobile ticketing to the masses with its 2D multimedia messaging services. The company rolled out its mBAR (Mobile Barcodes – Delivery, Authentication and Redemption) technology at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES) in May, and it is now ready to launch multimedia mobile ticketing to the public.
The new mBAR system allows ticketers to provide 2D barcodes (as ticket ID’s) and other media, including pictures and music, to consumers’ cell phones. At the venue, these bar codes are scanned, redeeming and authenticating the tickets and sending back verifying information to the ticketer. Databases built into the system also allow for easy tracking of relevant information related to the ticket and the ticket buyer.
In business since 2003, Skycore first developed a multimedia messaging platform, Cellyspace.com, to provide and manage mobile content and delivery solutions, launching it out of beta in 2007. The company then worked to integrate this mBAR system into the Cellyspace platform, particularly in the interest of servicing larger clients. However, the company views the mBAR technology as adaptable to all types of venues and events, as Steve Turcott, account director of business development, explained: “We’re offering this to other ticketing providers at major events, but we can also provide the ticketing technology as a ‘stand alone’, so a nightclub [or other small venue] can use it too. Or, if you have the infrastructure (such as industrial scanners which are already in use), you may not want to buy smart phones, and our ticketing solution still does work with the infrastructure.”
Rich Eicher, Skycore’s President and Co-Founder, (pictured) described the exciting debut of the technology at WES this year: “AT&T said since they are a wireless company, they should be facilitating ticket [purchases] wirelessly. We built this solution in conjunction with them for this event…we were able to develop these multimedia tickets and send them to people’s phones. They said, ‘Make it easy.’ We said, ‘Give us your [cell phone] numbers’ and we blasted out tickets to a Kenny Loggins concert.”
Turcott discussed some of the qualities that make Skycore’s technology stand out among the rest. “Primarily I would say it’s the flexibility. We’re not going to dictate a business model to users…we can provide a component or the entire system.” Turcott also noted that portability is a big plus, as there is very little hardware to move with this system.
And the secondary market? Skycore feels it is prepared, at least in transfer-friendly environments: “Any system that generates the ticket [in the secondary market], that ticket can be resent from whatever provider sends the ticket. At the same time, the same as print-at-home, [consumers] will still be able to transfer the tickets between themselves. These resale market systems in place today will be able to generate copies to people’s phones, just like email. Or they can simply revoke the original ticket ID and bar code and generate [new ones].” And, unlike with email, delivery is guaranteed: “Using email, you are never one hundred percent sure that delivery has been made. With this system, you get a receipt. It’s one hundred percent secure.”