Bar-Coded Tickets as Method of Payment

Mobiqa and PayPal Mobile have provided the world's first, complete end-to-end m-payment and mobi-ticket delivery service to Scotland Rugby fans.

For the first time, customers were able to pay for their rugby tickets via PayPal Mobile's WAP site on their phone and receive their bar-coded tickets immediately after purchase. Fans were prompted to purchase their tickets for games through promotional posters encouraging them to text ‘TICKET' to a shortcode. A link to PayPal's WAP site was then delivered to their phone where they could sign in using their existing PayPal account to pay for their ticket using PayPal's Mobile Payment Service. Upon completion, a mobi-ticket was sent straight to their mobile phone.

Mobi-tickets are text messages which contain a standard barcode and accompanying information about the match. Match-goers present their mobi-ticket at the ground where the barcode is scanned to allow for entry.

Fans are delighted with the service commenting, “It's so easy to use and definitely more convenient for me rather than worrying about a normal ticket getting lost or held up in the post, I'll definitely be using this service again.”

In other Mobiqua news, Village Cinemas in the Czech Republic became the first cinema chain in Europe to deliver and redeem tickets on customers' mobile phones. Since the launch of the technology, Village Cinemas have reported the service as a phenomenal success which has proved highly popular with their cinema-going customers.

Village Cinemas, together with their strategic partners currently operates over 1,000 screens around the world. Mobi-tickets are ordered through the Czech Village Cinema website and they contain a barcode and information about the film time in a simple text message sent straight to the mobile phone. The mobi-ticket is then presented at the entrance to the screen and scanned by a member of staff to allow entry to the film. The service has proved an outstanding success with over 5% of customers opting for this service in the first months of its launch.

“We thought a long time about our online ticketing but simply hesitated to put in place traditional methods of picking up tickets such as kiosks or special e-ticket box offices which make you wait anyway,” comments Tomas Palicka, GM, Village Cinemas, Czech Republic. “We wanted the ultimate solution to queuing and wanted to deliver in full the promise of online ticketing - hassle free, fast and simple service. Mobi-tickets are just the only effective way to do this.”