Photo Credit: AXS
Biometric authentication for concert tickets? Following a multitude of pricing controversies in the secondary ticketing world, AXS is now enabling customers to access passes via fingerprint and facial recognition.
AXS reached out with word of the “ticketing industry first” feature today. Already live on the platform’s mobile app, the option is also allowing customers to sign in to their accounts (not just access their tickets) without “the need to remember passwords” or pull up their passes at shows, the AEG subsidiary emphasized.
“We are thrilled to introduce biometric authentication to our mobile app,” AXS chief product officer Justin Burleigh added. “This feature not only enhances security for our users but also streamlines the ticketing process, allowing fans to focus on enjoying their live event journey.”
Elsewhere in its concise release, AXS pointed to biometric authentication’s purported advantages on the account recovery and “peace of mind” fronts. (Of course, password-free account and ticket access is a seemingly large part of the feature’s appeal – meaning that enrolled users, at least in theory, wouldn’t need to reset their passwords in any event.)
Absent from the announcement message is any note of the possible impact on the secondary ticketing space. But biometric authentication may make unauthorized ticket resales as well as account trades more difficult. In the end, those ticket-resale hurdles would presumably hit non-AEG platforms the hardest.
Also missing from the release is even a mention of privacy concerns, which took center stage when Live Nation’s Ticketmaster unveiled facial-recognition event access over half a decade ago. At the time, a number of fans and musicians promptly pushed back against the feature’s use.
Though it perhaps goes without saying, AI is turbocharging the technology, which, notwithstanding the well-founded criticism it’s receiving, is here to stay.
And as multiple attorneys have found through personal experience, certain venues are presently employing facial-recognition technology for all attendees, whether they’ve consented to biometric authentication on their mobile devices or not.
Meanwhile, BTS agency Hybe last month formally disclosed plans to begin offering facial-recognition access to its shows. That “Face Pass” option has largely flown under the stateside media radar, and in the long term, one needn’t stretch the imagination to see how the comparatively convenient choice could evolve (at Hybe and more) to cover admittance to VIP sections and a whole lot else.
Taking a step back from these pernicious pitfalls, it’ll be worth monitoring the market impact of AXS’ biometric authentication embrace moving forward. The aforesaid Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) today cracked another 52-week-high stock price by hitting $140.94 per share.