Ticketmaster exploring negative COVID-19 test or vaccination to attend concerts
The ticketing giant plans to have customers use their cellphones to verify if they’ve tested negative for the virus
Wallet? Check. Water? Check. COVID-19 test?
The pre-concert checklist for music fans is about to get more complicated, as Ticketmaster is planning to check the coronavirus vaccination status of concert-goers prior to shows once a treatment is approved, Billboard reported Wednesday.
The ticketing giant plans to have customers use their cellphones to verify their inoculation or whether they’ve tested negative for the virus within a 24- to 72-hour window, according to the exclusive report.
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The plan, which is still being ironed out, will utilize three separate components, including the California-based company’s digital ticketing app, third-party health information firms like CLEAR Health Pass and testing/vaccination distributors like Labcorp or CVS Minute Clinic.
Ticketmaster will reportedly not store or access medical records under the plan. If approved, fans would need to verify that they’ve either already been vaccinated or have tested negative as recently as 24 hours prior to the show.
British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran gives a concert at Otkritie Arena in Russia during his world tour on July 19, 2019. (Photo by Sergei BobylevTASS via Getty Images)
Concert-goers would then instruct a lab to send over test results to companies like CLEAR Health Pass or IBM’s Digital Health Pass, which would verify the fan’s status to Ticketmaster. Anyone who tests positive or doesn’t get screened won’t be granted access to the event venue, Billboard reported.
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The digital ticketing app will also eliminate the need for paper tickets and can be prohibited from being resold, according to the report.
The announcement comes just two days after Pfizer said results from a Phase 3 trial shows its vaccine candidate is more than 90 percent effective, or far more successful than the seasonal flu shot — which had an efficacy rate of 29 percent during the 2018-19 flu season, according to Centers for Disease and Control statistics.
Ticketmaster president Mark Yovich told Billboard he expects demand for digital screening services to skyrocket once a vaccination is ultimately approved and distributed.
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“We’re already seeing many third-party health care providers prepare to handle the vetting — whether that is getting a vaccine, taking a test or other methods of review and approval — which could then be linked via a digital ticket so everyone entering the event is verified,” Yovich said.
Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech announced Monday that they expect to produce up to 50 million doses of its vaccine candidate — BNT162b2 — for global distribution by the end of 2020 and as many as 1.3 billion doses next year.