News May 21, 2019

Melbourne’s Forum Theatre set to farewell physical tickets

Image: Marriner Group

The days of pinning concert tickets to the corkboard on your bedroom wall could soon be a thing of the past, with Melbourne’s Forum Theatre set to make the move to all-digital ticketing.

As time has gone on and both music and technology has evolved, so has the way in which we experience live performances.

Sure, sites like Setlist.fm might eliminate the element of surprise at a concert, and bans on phones supposedly help us to ‘live in the moment’, but for many, the idea of keeping a concert ticket as a souvenir of a live gig almost seemed like a reliable certainty.

Now, as The Herald Sun reports, Melbourne’s iconic Forum Theatre are set to go all digital, eschewing paper tickets in favour of its technological successor.

Working with Ticketmaster, the Marriner Group-owned venue is set to become the first in Australia to embrace a mobile-only method of ticketing.

“Digital ticketing is the future and our partnership with Marriner Group is another step in our mission to put mobile first,” explained Maria O’Connor, managing director of Ticketmaster Australia and New Zealand.

“Getting the technology live across all shows at the iconic Forum Melbourne is a huge milestone in this journey making fans lives easier.”

“By replacing paper and print-at-home tickets we can speed up venue access, while also protecting venues against fraud and enhancing security overall,” O’Connor added.

As the website for Ticketmaster also explains, this move to becoming a digital-only venue means that tickets can only be purchased via the Ticketmaster website or Ticketmaster App, noting that no phone or outlet sales will be possible in the future.

While this new method will make it easier for customers to not only access and transfer tickets, this isn’t the first time it has happened, with the Marriner Group’s Princess Theatre also going digital-only for showings of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.

The first shows to have tickets sold in a purely digital manner will be a handful of Splendour In The Grass sideshows for Maribou State, James Blake, and Tycho, all promoted by Secret Sounds.

“Innovating is critical to us here at Secret Sounds,” explained co-CEO Paul Piticco. “A fully digital ticketing system means less scalping, safe and easy transfer to friends and a better environmental outcome by not printing or producing tickets.”