There is a nice, up-to-date article on the current state of credit card fraud, especially as it applies to ecommerce over here at Practical Ecommerce.

Taking a look at recent statistics for UK ticketing websites, the site NetImerative.com has a nice look at increased business for our friends across the pond. You can read the full story after the jump…

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The Telegraph (www.telegraph.co.uk) the UK-based newspaper, reported on March 25th that the City of Canals, La Serenissima, known to you and I as Venice, is looking to initiate a ticketing system to control its tourists. With a population of around 50,000, the daily influx of over 100,000 tourists is making the place downright “unliveable”. While the city council debates pricing and scheduling, the real question is: who’s going to run the ticketing system? OK, maybe that’s only a question being asked by ticketing bloggers, a rare breed to say the least, but aren’t you curious?

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Ah, ticketing used to be so simple. A piece of paper with perforation, some money changes hands, high fives all around. Not so any more. First, as a response to forgeries, came an evolution of the very tickets themselves. Holograms, foil lining, inkless tickets – all but the most cunning, devious counterfeiters were forced to find other work.

Suddenly, a slew of advances in ticket selling technology have changed the game again. (It appears venues and promoters realized the real money is in selling more tickets, duh.) Allow me to draw your attention to three recent advances in the way we sell tickets…

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With the recent announcement that U2 has signed a long term, multi-faceted deal with Ticketmaster competitor Live Nation, a more clear vision of the company’s long term strategy is emerging. While its previous artist-driven deal with Madonna included rights to her recorded music, U2’s deal does not including publishing, and instead focuses on less threatened aspects of music revenue, such as merchandising and touring. While most analysis has lavished Live Nation with praise for their strategy, their success is far from certain.

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In the face of the IATA’s rapidly approaching deadline for 100% paperless ticketing for air travel, the Los Angeles Times ran a story this month playing devil’s advocate against e-ticketing. The article astutely notes that, while the IATA plans to enforce the deadline by no longer issuing ticket stock to agencies worldwide, the United States has its own ticket stock provider and is under less pressure to adapt.

While most of the article’s rationales for remaining at least partially paper-based follows luddite logic (you never know when those newfangled computers may explode!) and cold sweat airport nightmares (you are fighting for a seat against a passenger and HE has a ticket and YOU don’t!) there are a couple relevant points.

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All the web (at least for us enthusiastic ticketing newshounds) is abuzz with stories about Backstage Broker (www.backstagebroker.com) launching comparison-based ticketing. OK, there aren’t a whole lot of “stories” about Backstage Broker, but a lot of people have republished the site’s press release (sharp!).

The site is a self-proclaimed “meta site for ticket brokers”. For those of us more familiar with “meta fiction” or other (more appropriate) uses of the term, Backstage Broker is using “meta” to loosely indicate that they don’t sell tickets themselves, but work like a Grand Central Station for online ticket vendors (consciousness of the self, woah!).

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If you don’t work for an airline or the IATA, and you don’t spend vast amounts of time Googling ticketing news, you may have not noticed one of the most dramatic revolutions in the industry. In 2004 the IATA (International Air Transport Association) set a 2007 deadline for 100% e-ticketing. That’s three years for every carrier in every nation to replace their existing systems, and that’s a tall order that has moved billions of dollars around the market and achieved both unlikely success and inevitable disasters. The deadline, now pushed to May 31st, 2008, has caused a huge swell in business for ticketing services providing e-ticketing solutions.

The e-ticketing demands are not limited to air travel and the oversight is not limited to the IATA. Governments around the world are creating initiatives to transfer railway tickets to a paperless system, creating a slew of logistical disasters, conflicts with employee unions, and general confusion and disarray. Change on a massive scale, in an industry with extreme complexity, does not sit well with timelines and mandates… however the revolution moves forward.

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By ETHAN SMITH - The Wall Street Journal
January 28, 2008 11:33 p.m.

Adding momentum to its move into the business of reselling concert tickets, IAC/InterActiveCorp’s Ticketmaster is expected to announce Tuesday that it has acquired U.K.-based Get Me In Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter.

Terms of the deal were not available. Ticketmaster earlier this month agreed to pay $265 million for TicketsNow Inc., the No. 2 ticket resale site in the U.S. by sales, amid mounting challenges to its longstanding dominance in sales of tickets to major concert, sports and theater events.

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-The Associated Press: January 13, 2008

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: Stranded travelers attacked ticketing counters at Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza international airport on Saturday, tossing computers in the air and shoving security guards after Aerolineas Argentinas suspended most of its flights there.

Local television broadcasts showed passengers overrunning ticketing counters, throwing computers and wrestling with airport personnel, even as a spokesman for the airline attempted to explain the cause of delays.

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