Being a sentimental person, I can never bear to part with my theatre tickets. It may just be a piece of paper, but there are many fond memories attached to it. Finding an old theatre ticket doesn’t just remind me of the happiness a show brought me at the time, but also the people I went with, the dinner we grabbed beforehand, the conversations we had etc. There’s a lot of emotions packed into this one piece of paper.
I used to just throw them all in a box (that is, when I remembered to take them out of the programme). My organisation of them in general was pretty much one huge mess until I started scrapbooking them. Now I have this lovely memento to browse through and reminisce on all these fond memories.
Handing out tickets from one germy hand to the next in the covid world doesn’t seem likely. After reopening most theatres, if not all, are only offering digital tickets. This, of course, is a sensible move. The safety of all staff and patrons is the most important thing here. Some theatres have been offering paperless tickets for a while now anyway to reduce their environmental impact. There’s no doubt this is more sustainable and cost effective for theatres in general.
When I went to see ‘The Last Five Years’ last September, not only were tickets paperless, but the programmes were too. I saw this show just before the shutdown in February too and their programmes were digital to begin with. So whilst this may not have been a huge change for them, it does raise the question if other theatres will follow suit. Maybe they won’t just have digital ticketing, but also digital programmes. The difference between tickets and programmes though is that one is disposable and one brings in revenue so this seems a bit more unlikely.
To anyone who holds an emotional attachment to their physical tickets, paperless ticketing is going to be a huge blow. These little keepsakes bring me a lot of joy. They help you remember when you saw the show, the price you paid, and the seat you sat in. This is all information I would most definitely otherwise forget. What’s worse is that my scrapbook is still half empty! I need more tickets so I can fill it up.
Ticketing across industries have been slowly switching to paperless over the past few years. When I get my train back to my hometown these days, they often encourage me to take the digital ticket. I used to hate it, but now I actively opt for it. It made the journey home run a lot more smoother. I wasn’t having to rummage through my pockets to find my crumpled up paper ticket. As a society we have been moving towards this regardless, but covid has most definitely sped up this transition.
Hopefully, we will eventually see a return of physical tickets to theatre. After all, I have a scrapbook to finish!
What are your feelings on paperless ticketing? Would you miss paper tickets or do you not mind? Let me know in the comments!
I love receiving a proper theatre ticket, although I tend do get an e-ticket and print it off. I like sticking mine in my bullet journal so I always want to print them off!
Putting them in your bullet journal is such a cute way to keep them 💛
Love this! I’ve actually only been to the theatre once but I still really treasure that ticket and if they do return to paper tickets I would love to go more and start a scrapbook like you. Thanks for sharing x
That’s really lovely that you kept it! What did you go to see? 🙂
I love paper tickets and much prefer them to the digital ones, as I like to keep them for years to come xx
There’s a lot of memories in that one piece of paper 🙂
I keep all my paper tickets, I don’t like printing them at home or the tickets on the phone. I completely agree with this beautiful article.
Long live paper tickets !!
Yeah it’s not the same when you print them out. And if they’re just on your phone or in your emails, you will eventually lose them or clear them out of your inbox. Thanks for reading!
I keep my movie tickets as well! The last several movies that I’ve watched, I bought the tickets online. I ended up keeping the email because, like you said, there are so many great memories that come with a movie ticket. I do support paperless, but there are certain things I’ll always want a physical copy of as a keepsake. Thanks for sharing!
That’s nice to here others are also sentimental about tickets for a variety of different things! I am happy for the most part to do movie tickets, train tickets etc as digital. It’s way more convenient just to have it all on your phone. But I’m really sentimental about the theatre shows. The physical ticket is almost like a little souvenir from it 😊
I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I love paper tickets so much! I am very sentimental so I like to keep my tickets most of the time. I think it will be an adjustment for all tickets to be digital without a paper option. Maybe I will have to print them out, but that’s not the same. 🙁
Yeah printing them out really isn’t the same! 😞
It makes me really sad as I too collect them all and was making a scrap book, I also find it especially annoying when I have bought direct from the show or theatre and don’t get offered the option of a physical ticket and then see people at the show with them…is there some magic way to still get physical ones?
even so I usually print my digital ones and for the sake of scrap booking have bought little envelops to put them in as it looks nicer than just sticking a plain piece of paper in 🙂
You can get FanTickets from Apollo London who’ve tapped into this sentimental ticket market. Also there are Etsy sellers who create tickets for you, even if it’s obscure ones, they’ll create a ticket for you. They don’t have holograms but it’s still a lovely way to commemorate. You can also ask box offices if they do paper tickets and get them collected- sometimes they don’t charge you fees for booking either so always worth a nervous phone call (hate calls and would always do online but I’ve discovered box offices to be the best way! I’m accessible so that may be why). Another way would be to print your eticket granted it’s not as visually appealing!