Published on June 19th, 2013 | by Alan Cross
When I first started going to concerts, I saved every single ticket stub and proudly taped them to my bedroom wall in chronological order. Even after I moved out, I kept saving stubs as a record of who I’d seen and when.
I can’t remember when I stopped doing that, but I wish I hadn’t. It would be quite the collection.
Did you ever do something like this? I wouldn’t be surprised. But how many people save their stubs today? Mashable asks that question.
I wasn’t the only kid who saved ticket stubs back in the day. But are today’s kids saving their PDF printouts? I doubt it. Moreover, many events now allow your ticket to be scanned directly from your smartphone or other mobile device, which means there’s no physical ticket to save even if you want to.
So the real cost of digital ticketing isn’t just the loss of nicely designed physical items. It’s also the loss of documentation, the loss of personal totems that serve as touchstones to past experiences. Of course, digital tickets are documented too, since every ticket purchase and turnstile scan ends up on a hard drive or server as more data to be mined. But that’s not the same as having an envelope full of stubs that you can pull out of the drawer whenever you like.
Read the whole article here.
About the Author
is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 30+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.