Arts Facilities

Over the weekend I received a comment on a post I made in October 2019. The post dealt with the theory that the response that an arts and cultural experience was “not for me” might be based in technological barriers people might experience. I had titled the post “How Long Before You Can Only Participate If You Bring A Phone?”

In her comment, Lady Jane said she couldn’t attend a performance because she didn’t own a smartphone. While she didn’t mind picking up tickets at will call, you apparently couldn’t enter the venue to get to the box office without some feature on a smart phone.

I had run into a similar situation twice in the last two months. A day after buying tickets for my niece and nephew as a Christmas present, I was informed there was no print at home option for the show so neither I or my sister could receive the tickets in that manner. The only option was to download a proprietary app to a phone and receive them that way. If we wanted to pick up tickets at will call, there was an extra charge.

Last month, when I was going to another performance, again there was no option to print at home and an extra charge to pick them up at will call. Because I have a pretty good familiarity with ticketing systems I was able to finagle a way to print at home rather than having to download an wallet app to receive my tickets. (This is a totally different venue than the one I purchased tickets for my sister’s family.) Had my gambit to circumvent the lack of print at home options not worked, I was going to grumble at the executive director with whom I have a relationship.

In the end there was no problem but most people don’t have the tech savvy to do as I did, nor the confidence of having a professional relationship to lean on.

My original post was made about 6 months before Covid concerns accelerated the need to have touchless interactions, (though there are just as many germs, if not more, on a phone passing a scanner than on a piece of paper undergoing the same motion), so it may have taken longer to reach this point had the pandemic not occurred.

I am not sure what is driving the move to no print at home option. The only thing I can think of is an effort to cut down on ticket resellers who transfer print at home tickets by email on the secondary market. It definitely appears to be creating a new barrier to participation for people. Especially if there is an additional charge to pick up tickets at will call.