The Hindu Business Line : M-tickets to go mainstream; PVR to offer service in Sept

Theatre owners are working with cellular operators to set up an ecosystem that will allow movie-buffs to search, select a movie, pay and enter the theatre - all with just the mobile in hand.

While m-ticketing has taken off in other domains - railway and airline ticketing, rock shows, cricket matches, etc, the mobile user is in for a lavish assortment of services in the near future, starting with the moving pictures.

PVR Cinemas is planning a pan-India rollout of m-ticketing, and is currently conducting tests and trials to ensure all handsets are compatible. Come September theatre lovers across the country can bid adieu to the flimsy paper tickets and long queues. "We expect mobile users to adopt the m-ticket in a big way as it allows them the convenience of sitting at home and booking a movie ticket," said Mr Jiten Varma, Head of Technology, PVR Cinemas Delhi.

Spice Telecom is also working on bringing the m-ticket to its subscribers in 6-7 months. The ticket will appear on your mobile in the form of a picture message, which will be scanned at the entry to the screen, said a Spice official. These will be technically different from the existing m-tickets, which appear as a bar code and will be fail-safe as they will be invalid if forwarded to a friend.

A negative is the price - an m-ticket will be costlier than one bought after trekking to the venue and waiting in line. The "convenience fee," said Mr Varma, "will be imposed to take care of back-end infrastructure."

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