Artist-Specific Fan Verification for Fair Ticket Sales

Summary: Scalpers and bots dominate ticket sales, inflating prices and excluding genuine fans. A verification system requiring artist-specific knowledge (e.g., trivia questions) could block bulk buyers while ensuring real fans access tickets at face value, benefiting fans, artists, and venues.

The secondary ticket market is dominated by scalpers who use bots to buy tickets in bulk and resell them at inflated prices, making it difficult for genuine fans to attend events at reasonable prices. This harms fans, artists, and venues alike—fans pay more, artists lose control over their audience, and venues face reputational risks when events are filled with resold tickets. One way to address this could be a verification system that ensures only dedicated fans can purchase tickets.

How Fan Verification Could Work

The idea involves requiring potential ticket buyers to answer artist-specific questions before purchasing. For example, questions like "What was the lead single from the artist’s second album?" or "Name the city where they played their first headline show" could act as a gatekeeper. Since scalpers and bots are unlikely to know such details, this would filter out bulk buyers while allowing real fans to purchase tickets at face value. The system could be integrated into ticketing platforms or work as a standalone tool for event websites.

For fans: Ensures fair access to tickets without price gouging.
For artists: Helps cultivate an audience of genuine supporters.
For venues and ticketing platforms: Reduces no-shows and improves event reputation.

Implementation and Challenges

A simple MVP could involve partnering with a mid-tier artist to test the system for a single concert, using a basic web form with 5-10 questions. Over time, integration with ticketing platforms via APIs could automate the process. Challenges include:

Casual fans: Might struggle with niche questions, so offering a general sale after a verified pre-sale could help.
Scalper workarounds: Dynamic or rotating question pools could prevent answer databases from being compiled.

Compared to existing solutions like Ticketmaster’s random Verified Fan system or Dice’s mobile-only tickets, this approach adds a merit-based layer to ticket access, making it harder for scalpers to exploit the system upfront rather than after tickets are sold.

Source of Idea:

This idea was taken from https://www.ideasgrab.com/ideas-0-1000/ and further developed using an algorithm.

Skills Needed to Execute This Idea:

Web DevelopmentAPI IntegrationUser AuthenticationDatabase ManagementQuestion Pool DesignTicketing SystemsBot DetectionUI/UX DesignArtist CollaborationMarket Research

Categories:Ticketing SolutionsFan EngagementAnti-Scalping TechnologyEvent ManagementArtist-Fan InteractionDigital Verification Systems

Hours To Execute (basic)

100 hours to execute minimal version ()

Hours to Execute (full)

250 hours to execute full idea ()

Estd No of Collaborators

1-10 Collaborators ()

Financial Potential

$10M–100M Potential ()

Impact Breadth

Affects 100K-10M people ()

Impact Depth

Significant Impact ()

Impact Positivity

Probably Helpful ()

Impact Duration

Impacts Lasts 1-3 Years ()

Uniqueness

Somewhat Unique ()

Implementability

Somewhat Difficult to Implement ()

Plausibility

Logically Sound ()

Replicability

Moderately Difficult to Replicate ()

Market Timing

Good Timing ()

Project Type

Digital Product

Project idea submitted by u/idea-curator-bot.