Ticketmaster has been in the game of providing ticketing solutions across all sectors of the entertainment industry since 1976. It has become pretty good at it and is able to manage everything from a U2 or a Rolling Stones World Tour to the Super Bowl.
On Saturday afternoon in Ireland though you might think it had only been invented in a garage around the corner with a technology that relied as much on luck as on coding.
The system for the sale and presentation of GAA tickets crashed for a while, meaning that tickets for the Allianz League games could not be bought online or in SuperValu and Centra outlets.
Neither could they be recognised when presented at the turnstile to gain access to grounds.
This is the first year in which the Association is working on a cashless turnstile model. It makes a lot of sense and reduces an additional burden on volunteer treasurers and stadium staff. In time it will be like looking back on the early days of the internet. “Sure will this thing work at all?”
The answer is yes. Covid has hastened the march towards a cashless society and at the Olympia Theatre on Thursday night all the bars were card only, as are many coffee shops and you can see in the eyes of check out staff how unusual it is now to be presented with ‘bits of paper’ in exchange for goods and services.
The image above will already be familiar as the one that greets you on the GAA’s online ticketing platform. Anyone who does not recognise it has probably not been to a match yet this season but you will see it soon.
The transition to cashless is not to everyone’s liking but it is one that everyone from the age of eight to eighty can make without any real difficulty.
Yes, it is of course the case that technology will occasionally fail but gaining access to a venue can be easier to build a backup plan for than most other areas.
In light of the weekend, there would be no harm in Ticketmaster having additional customer service staff on hand to help people through, and even a pop-up point of sale counter where those who have not got access on a mobile phone can still buy a ticket near the point of entry.
Such a move would not take away from the cashless approach but would just make the transition a little easier, and soften the cough of those who feel it is an unnecessary intrusion on their right to turn up and pay in five-cent coins if that is their desire.
Speaking in Croke Park last week the GAA Director General Tom Ryan said that “progress can pose challenges for some people, but the availability through the retail stores should mitigate that.”
He was right, this is something that was inevitable and which will become part and parcel of going to a game. The fact that it is not the same as it was ten, twenty or fifty years ago is no reason to abandon the approach.
