The Rise of NFTs: Digital Commemorative Tickets Nathan Simonds from House of Tickets explains surging fan demand for NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) and how these ’Digital Commemorative Tickets‘ are providing promoters and ticketing companies with exciting new revenue opportunities
2021, Jack Dorsey co-founder of Twitter, sold his first ever from 2006 as an NFT for $2.9 million. The transaction Iwasntweet to take NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) to a whole new level as promoters, ticketing companies and marketing executives began to realise how the flexibility of NFTs was about to shake up the entire commemorative and souvenir industry sector. “The Jack Dorsey NFT was ground-breaking in that it was such an unusual commemorative item,” explains Nathan Simonds from House of Tickets one of the leading specialists in the ticketing sector. “It made people realise that anything could be built into an NFT. If a tweet could be tokenised into an NFT, what about a painting, an event, an iconic moment from sport, or even a slap at the Oscars?” NFTs have been with us since 2014. Think of them like what Bitcoin is for currency, NFTs are for digital art/collectables. Like a one-of-a-kind digital asset, usually with compelling visual 20 Australasian Leisure Management Issue 150
assets to make it more attractive and desirable as opposed to a simple bar-coded digital ticket. A mind-blowing US$41 billion was spent on NFTs in 2021. This year, meanwhile, is already seeing up to US$20 million being spent on NFTs each week. They have already had an impact on the investment sector that many experts believe is here to stay. As an additional complimentary solution to a physical souvenir ticket, when someone owns an NFT they actually own the rights to a digital file. All the data associated with that file is recorded on a public ledger ensuring the item has only one official owner at a time. That public ledger is secured on a blockchain such as Ethereum so no one can modify the record of ownership or copy/paste a new NFT into existence. House of Tickets saw the potential of NFTs early on. As a ticket solutions provider they know full well that promoters
