Over the next year and a half, Ticketmaster will be rolling out their new, ridiculously named Paperless Ticket™ technology at major venues across North America. The service will be available online and by phone and will have a two-per-customer limit. Paperless Ticket™ holders can skip the will-call line straight to the doorstaff, where their credit card will be scanned to determine their purchase.
Other benefits? Aside from convenience and being eco-friendlier, the new service will make it virtually impossible to scalp tickets (unless, of course, you're a division of Ticketmaster, who apparently sanction certain forms of scalping). And for those of you paper fetishists who save your stubs, you can still do it old skool for now, but intangible tickets will likely be the norm in the near future, so you might as well start saving your confirmation e-mails from now on.
The Paperless Ticket™ seems like a great idea, and since Ticketmaster is responsible for more than half of all ticket sales in the United States, it's bound to affect you eventually. Interestingly, the paperless technology will debut in conjunction with the upcoming Tom Waits tour, so it may affect you sooner than you'd think.
Tom Waits U.S. Tourdates: