Use your cellphone as a movie ticket
By Evan Blass 
posted Jan 19th 2006 4:00PM
posted Jan 19th 2006 4:00PM
A movie theater in a suburb of America's technology capital
has begun trial-running a payment method that allows customers to not only purchase tickets from their cellphones but
actually present an on-screen barcode to the tickettaker. The Emagine Entertainment theater in suburban Detroit is the
first US theater to implement pay-by-cell technology from Mobile Box Office, which is currently restricted to
Internet-enabled phones with color screens. Moviegoers need only go to the MBO site, buy a ticket, wait for a text
message with a link back to MBO, and follow the link to a webpage with a unique barcode representing the purchase.
Emagine has installed scanners that read the barcode off of the phone's screen and grant access to the theater.
Unfortunately, just like with Nokia's
kidnapphone, this system seems contingent on being able to get a signal in the vicinity of the theater, so members
of the T-MOB will need to continue purchasing their tickets the old-fashioned way.[Via Yahoo! News]
Detroit is the dirty asshole of the nation. It needs a Katrina type of storm to clean it up.
Please file your pro-Detroit, pro-T-Mobile, anti-Evan comments below:
Go Evan!;]
ok, i just want to know, what is it with all the t-mo bashing going on here lately? sure they have the worst gsm coverage in my city (ft wayne, in) but you would think that in a major city such as detroit or nyc there would be a lot better coverage. i should also mention that this is a great idea and its about time somebody came up with this. the only flaw i see in it is somebody either stealing your phone, or hacking the box office website to get free tickets.
btw, first post! :)
Congratulations, how advanced. As a German who has to live in Miami (and as a smoker I've stolen Al Capone's name) I can't believe how underdeveloped the US are technically. I pay most of my bills still by "the check is in the mail" and I even had to buy a fax machine because so many companies don't have e-mail or tell me: "send us a fax". But there's still hope, isn't it?
Al Capone,
As an American Living in Germany, I can't believe how underdeveloped Germany is technically, I still have to pay rates on my landline to call my neighbor, T-mobile, not to mention everything else Telekom owns messes up my bill every month. Not a single wireless hot-spot in sight, and the sidekicks just came out here! not even in prepaid!
But there's still hope isn't there!
Al Capone,
As an American Living in Germany, I can't believe how underdeveloped Germany is technically, I still have to pay rates on my landline to call my neighbor, T-mobile, not to mention everything else Telekom owns messes up my bill every month. Not a single wireless hot-spot in sight, and the sidekicks just came out here! not even in prepaid!
But there's still hope isn't there?
Very advanced. We've been doing this sort of thing here in Europe for a few years now. Glad to see you caught up.
T-Mobile is just as good as any service around here, maybe even a little better.
Anyways a theater near me lets you order tickets online and print them. Just as good as this, except for wasting paper and ink. The paper has a barcode, however the ticket checkers don't have barcode readers, they just take the paper. You could probably easily photoshop a ticket and get in for free. :)
Eh, your mileage may vary, where I live (Southern California - near Los Angeles) T-Mobile has better coverage than Cingular (by a little), Verizon (by a lot) or Sprint (lets not even go there).
I always carry a personal T-Mobile phone (Motorola V330) and a Work Cingular Blackberry (7100) and lots of people at work just call me on my personal cell because they know it will work.
My boss used to have a Verizon phone, he was always either a: Bitching about it or b: Borrowing my phone while bitching about his.
My wife works in the hills a little bit and T-Mobile is the only service that has coverage on the premises. Sometimes Cingular customers can get a signal if they go outside but everyone else has to get in a car and drive down the hill 1/2 mile.
Obviously all cities are different and I can't speak for detroit, though when I've traveled to Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis or San Francisco it's always worked great.
And let not even get into how cool it is to only have one year contracts.
I believe that the only reason that people buy tickets before getting to the theater is so that they don't have to stand in line or they do not want the show to be sold out (or, in case of Mr & Mrs Geek, to impress your geekier half) ... For this thing to truelly catch on, I think that Holywood needs to stop putting out such crappy movies ...
Terrific! Another reason to be tethered to your cell phone. And of all places in the movie theatres, where I'm forced to overhear crude conversations and disturbing ringtones going off throughout the film.
Whats with the no love for t-mobile!
Granted I use Cingular ... but still ....
Use your cellphone as a movie ticket? Here's a better idea.
Get a home theater instead.
Northward of $50 for a family of four to see a crappy movie here in NY.
New technology can't improve what comes out of Hollywood, nor
what they charge for it.
T-mobile is the best here in Houston...
Get your facts straight engadget. Dont put down a company that you have no clue about.
A dance party organizer here in the Netherlands uses this system since the beginning of this year (www.extrema.nl)
Evan, you really need to get with the times and realize that T-Mobile is considered to be one of the best carriers in the country. It's also one of the fastest growing carriers, just behind Verizon Wireless. T-Mo was rated #1 in all 6 Regions of the U.S. for overall satisfaction in a survey of thousands of wireless customers across the country. They're also rated #1 for their customer service and retail store experience, and they were ranked #1 for call quality in the Southeast and Northeast. For the other four regions, T-Mobile was above average in terms of call quality. (The surveys I have mentioned were conducted by JD Power & Associates) Now that T-Mobile offers roaming on the 850mhz band, T-Mobile's coverage area is extremely similar to Cingular's, with each company having a slight advantage in some areas.
You need to realize that this isn't 2002 anymore and T-Mobile has made some major improvements to its network since the Voicestream days. Stop making such ignorant and incorrect remarks.
Here in Raleigh, NC...T-Mobile is the worst. I have Sprint and I get the best coverage of anyone, so its really just where you live. And by the way, Sprint has free roaming contracts with Verizon so I dont ever NOT have signal.
Chuck-
99% of my humor is a take on the conventional wisdom (i.e. "T-mobile has the best prices but the worst coverage")and not my personal opinion.
That being said, I hear more complaints about T-Mobile coverage from friends in all parts of the country than I do about any other carrier.
-Evan
Detriot = "America's technology capital"? lol... :)
Yeah yeah, Detroit not Detriot
Now i only need a taser on the end of the cell, so i can skip the line and get in fasetr with the ticket already downloaded lol.
So, which is it going to be: are theaters going to block cell phones so we can't use them while watching the movies, or enable them so we can show our ticket with them?
--------
The last time I tried T-Mobile here in Richmond, VA, my experience was horrible. That was at the end of 2004. At the time, Suncom, Sprint, and Verizon were fine. Who knows - maybe they have improved in the last 14 months.
Evan, your humor isn't very funny when you use the same exact joke every day. And although T-Mobile may not have the best coverage in some areas, just like any other carrier, they certainly do have good coverage in many areas, especially large cities.
And to Bryan... T-Mobile has never offered service in Raleigh, NC. They have a roaming agreement with Suncom in this area.
So far, users have mentioned that T-Mobile coverage is great in:
-Los Angeles
-Chicago
-Houston
-Dallas
-Minneapolis
-San Francisco
-Atlanta
And people have noted that coverage is poor in:
-Richmond, Va
-Fort Wayne, In
If you really think T-Mobile is a horrible carrier, I suggest you do some research first. (And disregard any complaints that are more than a year old, as they are most likely outdated.)
Can anyone tell me what type of scanner is being used to scan the barcode off the screen? This is quite cool.
Mat.
chuck:
i just have to say,
i'm in san francisco
and i have two good friends in my immediate community who are on T-mobile and their coverage sucks ASS.
i'm on sprint, and i normally have to leave my friends messages because their phones go straight to voicemail, despite the fact that said phones are always on.
so add san francisco to the list of places where t-mobile coverage is/can be wack.
ps. sprint sucks donkey balls too, but not because of coverage, which is great.
i've been texting my fandango code to my phone and showing my text screen to the box office customer service engineer for 3 years now.
technology has finally caught up with me.
Advertisers need to start thinking of mobile ads as tickets and coupons. Imagine somebody's searching Froogle on their cellphone. A smart advertiser would place a 10% off ad for the product on the mobile search results page. If the user clicks the link, they can submit their phone number and any location of the store can access that information to redeem the discount.
I live in NYC and I use Froogle right now to price check before buying. I'd certainly walk across the street from Best Buy to Radio Shack for an extra 10%.
what if the cinema blocks the cellphone signal :P
Peter
Another person wondering what's with all the T-Mobile hate? I live in Denver, have them, and they have the best service out of all the companines in the area!
Just because some people have bad coverage with them doesn't mean that the whole company sucks, that's true with every single carrier!
LOL- the t- mobile sucks theme is hillarious and dead- on. i despise them, but only a smigdne less than verizon. as soon as somebody else has family plans with unlimted roaming, i'm outta here! (always hated catherine zeta jones, too- she looks like a cooter stanker.)
Quote: " I hear more complaints about T-Mobile coverage from friends in all parts of the country than I do about any other carrier." -Evan
I get you joke! You don't really have any friends! J/k there guy... anyways....
As a cell-phone salesman (not what I call myself on a day-to-day basis) that sells all four major services, I can tell you that T-Mobile is the only carrier I would like to deal with often. The other three piss me off constantly. On this topic, I must agree with the German in that, this particular services is... not revolutionary (of course it would be easy to mention dozens of ways Europeans are behind... not to start a pissing contest...) I can only think that this must be a very limited and/or easy to rip-off technology, how detailed a bar code could they fit on a V276 or one of the other over-priced Verizon phones with tiny screens? ;)
Following CyBeR's comment, Biletix has also been doing this for quite some time in Turkey now. So nothing new here for me. (Oh, and it's even better with Biletix since you don't receive an URL but the barcode ticket itself via MMS).
T-Mobile has decent reception most of places I am
the worst one is: Fort Dix
however, T-Mobile is ONE AND ONLY GSM service in Fort McCoy (all other GSM service user, let's pray), there's a T-Mobile tower near the PX
Verizon is not the best in NYC, T-Mobile is
and you should google the fincial expense of T-Mobile from 2001-2005, see how much it cost to add coverage, also you need to check the coverage map from 2001 (Voicestream)-2005, see how many "x" multiplied by coverage, and hear how many users say: "we never had had good signal where I live, but recently, I get 100% signal!", let's hear how many users said that
TMobile bashing? Dude...like, maybe its your phone!
I live about fifteen minutes from this movie theater. Ill have to try it out this weekend and see how it works. Its rare that Detroit is the first to try something that doesnt involve gasoline.
Oh yeah, my girlfriend had a t-mobile phone here for over a year and it had the worst reception Ive seen. So in this case, the prod at t-mobile is definitely justified.
whoa.. I live in suburban detroit and I have an Emagine theater in my city.... I shall go investigate this lol. But Emagina sucks as a movie theater, popcorn blows ass
Orange Wednesdays, anyone?
In my case, T-Mobile = 70% of the coverage, 20% of the price. With prepaid I pay $100/year (~$8/mo). Try getting that from any other US cell carrier.
That being said, the T-Mo jokes are pretty funny.
Emagine sucks as movie theater 36. ? Are you kidding me? I also live in Metro Detroit, and they have giant theaters and many of them, a ton of space in your chair, with a chair back that goes well above your head, a massive concession selection, student prices, and they show sports games for free. There normal prices are also very competitive.
T-Mob here in SFCA is about the same as other carriers but there's no comparison when doing the travel thing.
After signing up for FREE international access my phone works great in San Francisco, great in New Zealand, great in Spain, and great in Italy.
Oh, and this is with a grandfathered plan that includes "free" roaming, "free" domestic long distance, and web access all for just under $30 a month.
Try that with Cingular or Verizon.
What's there not to love?
Wow, this is crazy.
I was just at Emagine Novi an hour ago seeing a movie, I wish I would have known about this sooner.
Ill check with them next time Im there and see how this works
All well and good, but why demo it on the worst phone ever created (Samsung SGH-C100)?
I had it for a year - it dies so often and the battery was atrocious.
Show it off on something good - stop cheapening your brand.