Tickets Are for Remembering
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I eventually figured out how to make the most realistic replica ticket stubs possible to add to my ticket stub album. I spent several thousands dollars on professional printers and real stock as well as months building my own software to customize and print tickets, all to scratch my own itch. Now my collection continues to grow with the 20 or so shows I go to every year and I've helped over 16,000+ people do the same with my website https://stubforge.com, which I'm now lucky enough to run full time.
A lot of people don't get it, and that's ok, but for those that do, they really get it.
People buy our tickets to give as gifts (because it's not easy to do anymore in a non-awkward or non-art project fashion), to add to their collections, to frame with posters, to use as surprise proposals, to invite people to their weddings, to announce their pregnancies and more things I never would have imagined when I started.
There are people that do miss ephemera. Even if you don't look at it that often, it's something precious to you. It doesn't matter if your kids will get it or just chuck it, it's there for you to enjoy and remember in the fashion that you want to.
That said, I think it's a nifty gift idea to create e.g. fake tickets to your birthday party or something.
There are a lot of folks who feel like the object obtains some "magical aura" by physically being at a concert with you, and that's ok, but for me, it's just a way to remember the show and keep track of everything I've been to. I go to enough shows that a single ticket isn't like a massive special memento, which may be the case for the person who goes to like one show a year.
Gifting is huge for us as well as parties, retirements, anniversaries, you name it!
Or at an Arnold Braunschweiger action movie.
Isn’t the point of an experience… the experience?
Not to be able to have evidence that you were there? Even if you weren’t?
I feel like the whole thing is like some kind of cognitive hangover - “this ticket is important and I must not lose it before the show” turns into “I can never, ever dispose of this piece of paper”.
This has nothing to do with the actual concert experience or proof, it has to do with your tradition of collecting ticket stubs that you can go back to for that nostalgia bump and/or to keep track of every event you went to. It's about having a jar/box/album of memories.
If you've been collecting for 20 years and suddenly someone takes away your ability to add to your collection, you are going to get pissed off, and trust me, people definitely do.
Sure you can do anything else to collect, but the power of a streak/tradition/collection is real. It drove me to create this entire business because looking at a printed email or post-it note just made me mad instead of nostalgic.
Going through my binder and remembering that I saw Nine Inch Nails at a 1000 person venue is awesome, or when we saw Sabaton with 40 people and the singer just came into the audience to put his arm around me while singing, and it's not like I'm going to stop going to 10-30 concerts a year for the rest of my life, so more cool things will happen, memories will need to be preserved and it's nice to have them all fit into one album instead of anything else. I've got tickets for shows I've forgotten I've even seen, but it's in there with the mix which is handy. Forgotten venues, crazy low prices, "holy shit this massive band opened for these guys back then???".
Some people see tickets as trash and clutter, that's fine, for others it's a precious memento, despite how useless, wasteful, or unnecessary it is. I've got room for junk in my house that's meaningful for me, so it doesn't bother me to have, quite the opposite.
We really lost something with Print At Home tickets, it's just garbage afterwards, not a permanent thing tied to that event.
I love this idea and want to backfill some select tickets into my bucket of memory cues.
To go back to the GP post, why buy a fake ticket for this reason when you can print a real photo, buy official merch, etc.?
I specifically have a ticket stub binder and seeing blank spots, or print outs or post it notes just made me mad instead of nostalgic. I can't shove tour posters or tshirts in there, so this was the solution for me. I have over 200 band tshirts, but I don't buy one at every show.
Never discount the power of a streak or continuing a tradition or collection. I just talked to a guy the other day whose jar of ticket stubs is his prized collection, even if he never opens it to reflect. Some people go to one concert every few years, others go to shows and games every week.
Personal memories can be made in innumerable ways. The absence of tickets doesn't mean memories, or physical representations of memories, are going away.
As for academic interest, I have to imagine there's a digital repository of playbills or the information therein somewhere that's easily searchable. After all, these types of resources exist for other performances like pro wrestling and mixed martial arts in the form of cagematch & sherdog. I may not have my ticket stub from my first match, but I can still look it up by venue, year and the matches I remember. I can find contemporary news reports and reviews. This can be supplemented with web forum discussions and other social media, blogs, etc. people crave this type of discussion, documentation and artifacts that prove their fandom. I don't think they care about the medium.
Photos and videos? Nope, I don't even have a camera aside from the one in my phone, and the stuff in there are so forgettable I don't even know what's in there.
Postcards, hats, shirts, and other "I was here." tourists' goods? Nope. I stopped buying them when I noticed they all just end up stuffed under nine layers of my closet's hell never to see daylight again. Waste of my money.
Tickets and other "I paid money to be here." artifacts? Thrown out in the trash asap. See above; waste of space.
In stark contrast, I do buy and collect things that enrich my present day. Books pertaining to my interests to line my shelves, hardware and software to satisfy my computing itch, and so on.
Whoever has the unfortunate privilege of cleaning up my affairs (I have no children nor a spouse and don't plan on it) will unfortunately have no idea where the fuck I've been, but honestly I don't think I could care. I just don't see value in memorializing my past. I don't know if that's good or sad, but I certainly couldn't care less.
The best things to buy check both "memorabilia" and "enrich my present day" boxes. If I'm going to get an album, I might as well get it at the show. If there's a new book you want, check if there's a signing, etc. I usually give books to the thrift store after I've read them, but I'll hold on to the copy of John Hodgeman's More Information Than You Require because of the experience of getting it inscribed at a meet & greet.
Now, for your $50 per ticket in junk fees, you don't even get a tiny piece of card stock. In fact, you've been charged a "convenience fee" for using YOUR OWN PRINTER. That is disgraceful. And now I don't think you can even use a physical printout anymore.
And that's not even getting into the resale/transfer-rights aspect.
Gradually, as physical tickets got phased out, I had fewer and fewer items of memorabilia to add. At this point, I have no physical record of shows we see. I feel like something has been lost. But I suspect far fewer people kept these tickets for nostalgia than threw them away, so I guess I'm not mad; I'm just disappointed.
Not sure how it will go, but an interesting experiment I think.
“They tell us what it was like to be there.”
I could just as easily write a few lines down in my journal, and the journal would at least record my thoughts. The ticket does nothing.
It would also unlock new ways to connect with audiences. For example, if your wallet holds 3 or more NFTs from this venue/director/band, you get early access to purchase tickets for future events.
Those tickets are for forgetting.