Ticketmaster has announced that AC/DC will utilize the company’s paperless ticketing technology for select seats on the band’s upcoming North American arena tour, which launches Oct. 28 at the Wachovia Center in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Up to 3,000 paperless tickets per night will be used for the North American leg of AC/DC’s Black Ice World Tour, which arrives in support of the group’s forthcoming studio album “Black Ice,” due Oct. 20 via Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores as well as ACDC.com. Tickets for the trek go on sale in select markets beginning tomorrow (Sept. 19).
The non-transferable paperless ticket purchases for AC/DC’s tour will be available via ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster charge-by-phone, Ticketmaster retail outlets and ACDC.com. To gain access to the shows, concertgoers will be required to bring the credit card they used to make the transaction, along with a valid photo ID.
Part of the reason AC/DC embraced paperless ticketing was “to help ensure fan club members and fans purchasing designated seats will be able to secure tickets at face value,” according to a statement from Ticketmaster.
In an effort to combat resellers from the ticket-buying equation, Tom Waits became the first recording artist to use Ticketmaster’s paperless ticketing technology during his 13-date U.S. theater tour earlier this summer.
The idea to go paperless was a conscious decision to “take the secondary (ticketing) market out of the mix,” Stuart Ross, Waits’ booking agent at Music Tour Consulting, told Billboard.biz. With paperless ticketing, “we are now able to construct a 100% will-call pickup with no lengthy lines, ensuring that all of the tickets are sold to the end user at face value,” he added.
Earlier this month, Metallica became the first act in Europe to use Ticketmaster’s paperless ticketing system. The rock group used paperless ticketing during its 15,000-capacity concert on Sept. 15 at the London’s O2 Arena.
Ticketmaster VP of music David Marcus told Billboard, “We expect for the next year that we’ll do [paperless ticketing] on a tour-by-tour basis.”
He added, “It’s not a massive infrastructure investment at this point, because we think it’s going to be selective situations where artists are looking for an alternative to forced will call for their fans.”
