Protect yourself: Hide your barcodes

We all know it is very exciting when you get your hands on some of the hottest tickets in town, but we are here to remind all live event fans to protect their tickets – and themselves – from unscrupulous people who may be looking for their barcodes.

As tempting as it is to post images of tickets on social media sites, it is important to remember that the barcode on a ticket is a very powerful set of numbers of lines. A ticket’s barcode is a unique set of numbers that will grant access to the event.

In recent times, there has been an increase in fraudulent behaviour whereby people browse the internet and social media sites looking for ticket barcodes that can be copied and resold.

While Ticketmaster works hard to send this message to its customers, we would also encourage our venue and event partners to communicate a similar message to the fans who are buying tickets to your live events.

It is unfortunate that a simple and innocent Facebook post can lead to major problems, but in the interest of protecting live event fans we need to send a strong message about online safety.

A similar issue was in the news on the past months following a young woman’s big win on the Melbourne Cup. Her innocent Facebook image turned into a nightmare when someone took her barcode and collected her winnings.

And it can happen easily with tickets as well. So, to avoid the pain and hassle of turning up to a concert and being denied entry, we encourage everyone to keep their tickets in a safe and secure spot and resist the urge to post them online. At the very least, if you are taking pictures of your tickets, hide the barcode to protect yourself from online fraudsters.

We want everyone to have an amazing experience when attending a live event purchased through Ticketmaster. So in future, keep tickets off social media and just enjoy the amazing performance you were lucky enough to get tickets for!