Sports Illustrated Tickets (SI Tickets), a subsidiary of the renowned American sports magazine Sports Illustrated, has migrated its non-fungible token (NFT) ticketing platform, Box Office, to the Avalanche blockchain.
The move, announced on February 20, aims to capitalize on Avalanche’s advantageous features, including low transaction fees and high efficiency. By shifting to Avalanche, SI Tickets also intends to empower partner venues and events to transform tickets into dynamic content, enhancing guest engagement.
Introduced in May 2023, Box Office emerged from a collaboration between SI Tickets and ConsenSys, the company behind the popular crypto wallet MetaMask.
The platform facilitates the sale of tickets as NFTs across various events, ranging from sports to music festivals and conferences. Additionally, it features the “Super Ticket” NFT solution, which allows event organizers to maintain connections with attendees through collectibles and loyalty incentives.
Now, Avalanche steps in to take the place of Polygon as the blockchain infrastructure for Box Office. Notably, other platforms like Dreamus and NFT-TiX opted for Avalanche last year, recognizing its capacity to elevate the overall ticketing experience.
The integration of NFTs into the ticketing industry is gaining significance due to their potential to address major challenges, including ticket scalping — a practice that involves bots purchasing tickets in bulk and reselling them at inflated prices.
For instance, Hyundai recently explored NFT solutions to tackle the problem, introducing a “macro-blocking” system last month. This system restricts the transfer and resale of tickets, allowing only verified users to purchase and use tickets, and prohibiting the resale of NFT tickets once purchased.
