May 13, 2004
Sydney concert venue tries SMS barcode system
A new SMS barcode system has cut ticket production costs for a Sydney concert venue by 50 percent, according to ZDNet.
"Adam Dunne, sales and marketing director for Aura Digital said, in a recent trial with Sydney's Metro Theatre, people booking for any of the three sell-out concerts by the Australian band Jet were offered the choice of receiving the Mobi-ticket -- an SMS barcode sent to customers' mobile phones.
The Mobi-ticket was also used as an after-sales promotion, increasing revenue at the bar by offering patrons a two-for-one purchase deal on drinks simply by scanning the bar code on customers' phones.
Leo Crawford, entertainment manager for Metro Theatre, said, "We wanted to drive bar sales by encouraging patrons to return to the bar after the concert. By using the mobile barcode tickets as coupons we were able to track redemptions and increase the patron participation rate.
According to Dunne, an average of 20 percent of patrons across the three events chose to receive their ticket using the barcode system, with uptake reaching 29 percent by the third concert.
Dunne said if the phone cannot accept binary codes, which are sent as picture messages, a unique number is sent as a simple text message that can then be encoded at the concert entrance.
The barcode is scanned using a wireless Bluetooth hand-held scanner and redemption information is captured to a laptop".
Other articles on related barcode technologies:
-- Nokia camera phones for grocery shopping
-- Barcodes for the World of Ends
-- Scanbuy works with Ericsson to equip new cell phones with bar code commerce solutions
-- Sem@code: real-world hyperlinks with a camera phone
-- Technology links ads to website via cell phone
-- New Commerce System Uses Barcode on Picture Phones
-- Comparison book shopping on Amazon.com thanks to Nokia camera phones and Neomedia Technologies
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