Sales outlets can be online, through record stores or approved outlets, or at the venue itself. Wristbanding is another level of identification with the wristbands are usually colour coded and identify the wearer to security or gate staff of access rights.

Although the paper used in ticketing may be a relatively small proportion of the overall materials consumption of an event, combined across all events by one company, let alone the volume of paper to produce the world’s tickets, can add up to be a considerable amount.

Solutions to reducing the environmental cost of ticketing are possible. Additionally, the ticketing phase is being used to have the audience opt-in on taking on their share of the environmental cost of their participation in the event.

Specialist ticketing companies have developed as the event industry needed a formalized system to handle the huge volumes and diverse geographic regions which people may travel from to see big shows.The ticketing agency also acts as security bond, with most holding the money in trust until after the show is successfully delivered, thus offering peace of mind to audiences who have paid over significant sums of money to go to an event.

Considerations in ticketing include:

• Do you need a physical printed ticket, can everything be electronic?
• If printed, does each ticket need to be mailed out?
• What paper stock, printing inks and process for physical production of the ticket and any accompanying promotional material are used?

Traditionally, tickets are physical printed card, often with tear off portions. In their printed form they can be valued keepsakes of shows attended and good times enjoyed. Certainly some tickets stubs signify certain rights of passage and milestones in many young people’s lives. Likewise, coloured wristbands are also treasured keepsakes and mementoes for fan

The value to customer experience should be considered on whether or not to have a ticket and/or wristband. Certainly having a keepsake is something that is wanted by many concert and festival goers. But preventing the transport of enveloping and mailing tens of thousands of tickets and jumping directly to wristbanding can be a solution which gives the audience a momento but eliminates the printing and transport of tickets.

However, practicalities do come into play and those events or festivals where the scale doesn’t allow the logistics of paperless ticketing to be viable, will need to address their ticketing impacts through reduction of extraneous printed material accompanying the ticket and through ensuring any promotional printing is as sustainable as possible.

If a ticket or wristband is produced the following need to be considered:

Tickets:

• What are the specifications of the paper/card the ticket is printed on? Are sustainable materials used?
• What inks, varnishes, laminates are used?
• Does the printing company have independently assessed sustainability practices in place in printing operations?
• Is the ticket manufacture process energy intensive? For example are any special security elements added to the ticket which require highly specialised and energy intensive processing?
• Where are the tickets produced? How far to tickets need to travel from point of manufacture to point of distribution to customer?

Wristbands:

• What material is the wristband made of?
• Is the manufacture of the chosen material hazardous?
• Is the manufacture and printing/branding of the wristband hazardous?
• What printing inks, if any, are used?
• What are the labour conditions in the factory the wristbands are being manufactured? Does the factory have ILO or other labour based certification?
• Where are wristbands manufactured? How far do the wristbands need to travel from point of raw material manufacture, to point of wristband manufacture, to p0int of distribution to event location?

Paperless Ticketing
Instigating a paperless ticketing system eliminates the need of printing and mailing tickets (whether plain paper or high tech security tickets).

In paperless ticketing systems, tickets are paid for on the phone, online or in a retail outlet. A confirmation number is supplied (by email, sent to a mobile phone). The credit card used to purchase the ticket is swiped at the ticketing gates at the show, and the physical ticket step is leap-frogged to supply of a wristband or direct entry into the gig.

Green Tickets
The concept of Green Tickets is seeing more popularity. Green tickets are based around a carbon offset or other ‘eco’ product or activities opt-in aligned with the ticket sale.