September 9th, 2008 by Gregory Jones

In a move that is claimed to reward their fans, donate proceeds to charity, and control the online secondary ticket market, Metallica have opted to use paperless ticketing for their forthcoming UK show.

Last week the heavy metal legends, Metallica, announced a one-off UK show at London’s O2 Arena. However, instead of using regular ticket distribution channels, the band has decided to embrace a new paperless technology. The system, that has yet to be tested in Europe, was used by Tom Waits on his North American “Glitter and Doom” tour earlier this year.

Metallica have rewarded loyal fans by charging only £5 to attend the performance and have said that the proceeds will be donated to charity. Only existing members of the official fan club (annual membership $60) and those who have pre-ordered the new album  were able to order tickets.  Fans must bring the credit card used to pay for the tickets to the event. The card will then be scanned at the gates and the loyal fan will be handed a receipt as proof of entry.

Whilst the decision to go with the paperless ticketing system is a way of reducing the resale of tickets, it also restricts the ticket holder and as no deal has been cut with a secondary operator, arguably their charitable donation will be negligible after the cost of putting on the show.  Only time will tell whether or not this will turn out to be a successful move.