One Man’s Opinion: I Hate E-Tickets

By Bill Crane

Though not always an early adopter, I tend to roll with and learn the latest technologies as they become readily and widely available. With a few exceptions, I do consider technology to be a friend of productivity that frees us from dozens of tasks that at one time could only be accomplished with hours or even days of labor by hand. As a Boomer, I have seen a lot of enhancements come to the fore in my lifetime. While I can easily recall the 8-track, cassette, CD, and fax machines, I will attest that I never would have guessed that a palm-held device, such as a Smart Phone, would ever become so much a part of our day-to-day lives. This is not a column to attack Generation Z, Millennials, up-and-coming teens, or tweens who seemingly are addicted to those devices. This is instead a call out against those instances where technology can take us BACKWARDS, or at the very least to a more challenging, less functional, and even occasionally unsafe space. I HATE paperless e-tickets.

I will point out, that whether we are speaking of your Delta boarding pass on your phone, or an e-ticket to a charitable, sporting, or entertainment event, this change created significant savings for the venue, the ticket brokers, and re-sellers and middlemen, with e-tickets ostensibly making it significantly easier to transfer, sell, and resell the same ticket, all sent seamlessly through the airwaves. Define seamlessly.

What has undoubtedly become Less Than Fun is the process of accepting or downloading e-tickets for each event, saving time in your iPhone or Google Wallet (Android), or God forbid, forgetting this step and attempting to access your seats via Wi-Fi on game day.

In the event of technical problems, we are now at the complete mercy of box offices with incredibly limited hours of operation, Call Centers with only occasionally helpful staff, frequent instances where glitches cannot be addressed or corrected, and tickets paid for that ultimately go