I’ve noticed a recent trend of ticketless ticketing. This is a process where you buy your tickets on a credit card but do not receive a physical ticket. You must arrive at the show with the credit card you used to purchase the tickets along with photo ID, and then you and your guests will be allowed into the venue. The purpose is to try to thwart the secondary market and scalpers. Although I like the idea in theory, it poses a problem for me.

Since I was old enough to go to concerts, I have been collecting my ticket stubs. I have 30 years of stubs in a stack at home. I intend to take these stubs to a friend who owns an art gallery and he will mount and frame them for me. My little ticket stub collection is about to become an important piece of memorabilia. My concert history proudly displayed.

I was hoping that once this current stage of the project was completed that it would be ongoing. Perhaps every ten years or so I would have enough stubs to fill a new frame. But if this trend of ticketless ticketing catches on, that won’t happen.

I’ve always thought of the ticket stub as a souvenir. I’ve never bought programs and rarely bought t-shirts, mostly because the stub was the only souvenir that I felt needed from an event. It was the proof that I was there!