Issued by: Multimedia Solutions


“With the world's focus shifted to South Africa for 2010, we've had huge interest from sporting bodies, not only from the 2010 World Cup, but for the 2012 Olympics,” he says.

There are the obvious advantages mobile ticketing provides including using the cellphone (MSISDN) number as a means to uniquely identify the ticket purchaser, a digital ticket which saves on printing costs and all the additional information the MMS ticket can provide about the game and venue (stats, location of food kiosks, rest rooms etc).

For tickets issuers wishing to provide for a more dynamic solution, tickets can be stored on a mobile website (mobisite), which ticket holders can access using their cellphone number as a login and a password.

“This allows companies to dynamically update a ticket. For example, if a customer purchased a bundle of train tickets, the mobisite would inform them how many trips they had left on the ticket as well as providing the barcode for scanning at the station. It could also provide a host of other information about the stations, train times etc,” he says.

The mobisite can also provide far more additional information than an MMS would about an event or the venue and could carry advertising.

Mobile ticketing prevents ticket fraud as tickets cannot be photocopied, ticket receipts can be tracked and tickets can be blocked or cancelled in the event of any foul play.

Further advantages:

The technology allows for a whole host of additional opportunities around event management, Groenewald says. “For example, the ticket purchaser can enter onto the mobisite where they will be travelling from when they purchase the ticket. They can then be issued with directions on which route to use to approach the stadium. Law enforcement personal can then be placed on those routes to manage the traffic before and after the event.”

“In addition, a parking ticket could be purchased and assigned upfront so that ticket holders would know exactly where to park before they got to the stadium. Or if they chose to use a park-and-ride facility, they could be assigned parking at that venue and could catch a bus or train to the event. On a mobisite, these multiple tickets – the event, parking and connecting transport to the stadium – could all be included on the person's profile,” Groenewald says.

Knowing the cellphone number of ticket holders in the stadiums would also be useful for safety purposes as fans could be sent messages in the event of an emergency. For example, if a fire broke out under a stand, people sitting in that stand could be sent messages asking them to evacuate without announcing it over the loud speaker system, causing havoc.

SA ready?

But the question is whether South Africa ready for such a technology? Are the handsets capable of receiving the tickets via MMS and would consumers use mobisites from their phones to purchase tickets or look for information.

Groenewald says South Africa has one of the highest number of consumers utilising the mobile Internet in the world. And given the lack of fixed line Internet penetration into the market, this is only set to increase. Furthermore, most phones in the country are MMS capable.

“South Africa is therefore well positioned to offer a host of mobile technology by 2010 as well as go on to offer that technology to the rest of the word,” Groenewald says.

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[31 Jan 2008 15:01]

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